Over the last decade we have seen a major shift in business travel. Travellers have gone from the prestige of being an important employee with bragging rights around the whole world, to being some kind of liability due to increased risk to the company.
Travelling is perceived as more dangerous because of the increased global risk level but this is not true. Travelling has never been safer and leaving your home is riskier. Yet travelling has finally been recognised as tough and physically and mentally hard, therefore taking its toll on the individual.
What has changed?
- Communication tools and social media activity have increased enormously
- New products make co-working and knowledge sharing across timelines possible
- The direct financial cost of travel has decreased substantially
- The indirect cost (time and wasted time) of being away from the normal workplace increased
Each of these areas are manageable but on top come external factors such as a new generation of travellers with different values; legislation on data protection, security and taxes and the increased recognition of climate change and travel as a major contributor.
However, the mindset of the whole travel food chain has not changed and neither has the way all the players behave and how they protect their existing infrastructure.
That said, there are some key positives such as
- The recognition of the value in meeting face to face
- The acceptance of huge differences in cultural behaviour that still exist despite the uniformities created by social media
All these trends, bottlenecks and behavioural changes are already affecting the landscape and will accelerate exponentially through to 2020.
Technology and environments have changed how we interact
The fact that whole populations are using the same platforms will increase the trust in your fellow man. We hear about hacking, data theft and monitoring, but look at our kids and how they communicate or play with friends all over the globe. Instant messenger systems make it easy to receive help and knowledge instantly and, via the internet, knowledge has become commodity.
Urbanisation creates its own dynamics and makes physical interaction and sharing much easier. Just think of the fact that 100 years ago more than 90% of the world population never went further than 15 miles away from their birthplace and relied on verbal information. Urbanisation is creating the same tribe structure just multiplied by thousands.
Technology will continue evolve and change the way we humans interact. It will help us view the world holistically contrary to today, where we tend to tunnel focus.
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'Tribes' have expanded due to technology which brings new behaviours ©Georgijevic/iStockHow various roles could change
The traveller world
The explosive development in social networks, increased traffic and decreased cost of travel has generated new travellers. While the business travel sector has grown due to globalisation, many more people are getting used to handling the complexities of the travelling experience.
This has changed how people in general look at travel and while we all like to have vacations and travel, it has become less sexy and privileged. This has influenced the business travel sector, where travelling has become hard work with security, smaller seats, physical hardship and being away from family. There are still road warriors out there that love to travel and work internationally, but with a fragile and busy family life in developed societies, it is less attractive than before.
This means that the business traveller becomes more valuable to the company and this will reflect or improve conditions, probably fewer, but MORE important, travels and meetings.
The travel buyer world
The sheer fact that the indirect cost of being away from the normal workforce has exceeded the direct financial cost, as well as the stronger focus on duty of care and the well-being, will make the travel department a HR responsibility. The existing travel manager role will change from a travel-centric responsibility to HR function working holistically with other teams.
This will require new knowledge and interaction where travel specialised language becomes obsolete. In the rare incidence where it is needed, a translator (consultant) is hired short term. This approach and technology will end up changing where resources are spent.
- Increased technology spend followed by higher efficiency through robots etc
- Decreased spend on direct financial travel cost as well as indirect cost allocated to physical travel
- Increased spend on people exchange and physical cross-culture physical meetings eg multi-national education, social events
Being away from the normal workplace will mean travel will have an increased focus from top management as one of the highest cost areas. This is forcing HR departments to review their role and responsibilities.
The supplier world
The airline, accommodation, ground transport and consumption industries are all characterised by very high physical asset investment which are people heavy and service level dependent. These industries rely heavily on old technology, infrastructure and restrictive thinking. To highlight my point: why is the middle seat not cheaper than window or aisle? Why do hotels still have problems giving customers the same room as previous years? In short: the suppliers have lost control.
However, perhaps the biggest bottleneck is the people. Time and time again I hear the words: "this will not work in our industry". Progress will continue to be slow until the industry really embraces new entrants and travel learns to copy and develop from other industries.
I suggest
- Investing heavily in getting the right technology-focused people on board (learn from Apple, Google, Facebook etc)
- Working with the public sector and encouraging them to support the changes needed, for example how airports are being run
- Being open to non-travel industry people who can bring new views, and listen to them
The intermediary world
Most of the comments from the supplier world apply to intermediaries. The main difference is the assets investments; intermediaries are asset-light and people-heavy.
The technology from the seventies was so sophisticated and great that the suppliers stopped developing their own. This influenced the intermediary heavily and "forced" total dependence on the GDS with education and systems based on the strength and weakness of these.
Globalisation, various important deregulations and a huge increase of direct flights have been a main driver for a substantial part of the whole industry. The arrival of internet made it naturally to move the intermediaries there and today more than half of all global bookings are made online. There are few physical products and mostly we talk about bits.
The reliance on the old structure has brought a technology-advanced industry to a standstill. Theories like LEAN is virtually nonexistent throughout the industry.
I suggest
- Rethinking the value chain to the buyer's requirements and need. There is a lot of wisdom available in the retail industry that could be introduced to the travel industry
- Finding and establishing user-friendly point of sale structures. Educating on customer service rather than cryptic language and systems.
- Creating and establishing a multi-source and distribution channel structure
- Aligning company structure to the buyer and stop thinking in silo structures
I worry about the future of the travel industry and all the great people in it. The industry generates a huge numbers of jobs and if people stay at home or there is more fear, increased cost or complexity during the trip because the inability to change slows development, we all lose out.