It's an exciting time for the industry and it's no secret we're in an age where business travel is continuously evolving. Not just in how it's arranged and booked, but also in how the overall behaviours and expectations of today's business travellers are changing in this always-on, connected world.
Business travellers expect an experience similar to leisure travel. But this can be a real challenge for companies because business travel has many requirements that are simply not there in leisure travel. Policy compliance, commitments to preferred suppliers with negotiated rates, cost control and visibility for duty of care are among them. Balancing these needs with providing a seamless experience that keeps your business travellers from straying outside your managed travel programme must be top of mind for companies today.
Personalisation in business travel
Historically, consumer sites have led the charge in personalisation and they do it quite well. Today, we are all used to (and expect) some level of personalisation and a more tailored experience based on our past behaviour. In fact, in a recent survey, 82% of business travellers found personalisation to be useful, practical and a time-saver while only 11% felt it was intrusive. But, in my opinion, business travel has lagged behind in terms of personalisation and individualising the traveller experience — which can be attributed to the complexity and siloed nature of the ecosystem that we operate in.
A big difference in personalisation between the business traveller and the consumer traveller is that the amount of personal data being used for service in a consumer world is huge. Companies (quite rightly) have an obligation to protect their employees' data so while consumers can be more relaxed (and sometimes unaware) of how their data is used, businesses are more restricted in order to maintain regulatory compliance. And these regulations are not going to ease up anytime soon. If anything, they'll only increase over time and there will be more constraints placed on the kinds of data companies can use to personalise options for their employees.
So, the question becomes, how can you provide your travellers with a business travel booking process that feels personalised and benefits both the traveller and the company, all while adhering to regulatory guidelines?
Well, the good news is that humans are actually quite predictable — especially on business trips. If you take your corporate policy and preferred supplier options into consideration alongside a traveller's and their colleagues' past behaviour there's actually a high probability of picking the right trip components for that traveller. And, in my experience, this is the type of process business travellers want.
In fact, by curating the right content; balancing the needs and preferences of the traveller with the needs of the business and then recommending a complete trip, you will frequently see travellers simply booking the proposed trip without making any changes. By proposing the perfect business trip, travellers spend less time booking travel and more time focusing on the job in hand. It's good for the traveller and the business. Although it's more challenging for companies to accomplish, the reality is we're seeing the same reaction to personalisation from business travellers that we're seeing in consumer travel.
Making it easier for employees to do the right thing
Most business travellers don't want to be miscreants. They want a travel booking process that is quick, simple and personalised with some flexibility, choice and assurance that compliance is built in. Spending hours shopping around on multiple sites for leisure travel may be a fun experience for some but let's face it — who has the time to do that for their business travel?
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Travellers are usually quite predictable on business trips ©turbodesign777/iStockHow can you give your travellers choice and a convenient process while not compromising compliance? The answer is: by providing curated content that is policy compliant, uses preferred suppliers and is also personalised based on user preferences. This makes booking travel easier, faster and enables your employees to be good corporate citizens.
In order to deliver a truly seamless experience for business travellers, great technology isn't enough. The key to really making a difference for the traveller is understanding how software and service interact and, in addition to your booking tool, making sure you're working with a travel management company (TMC) that provides strong service throughout the traveller's trip. This can make all the difference in the event something goes wrong while travelling — such as a flight being cancelled or the traveller needing another reservation quickly.
Four trends for 2018
Business travel consolidation: While innovative upstart companies push boundaries, test new ideas and introduce new technologies into the marketplace, they can't scale to meet the data requirements of large corporations or provide the global coverage needed. So, as new technologies are introduced into the market and adopted by business travellers, we'll continue to see bigger companies recognise this and incorporate them into their portfolios.
Increased usage of voice technology: There is a lot of chatter around chatbot functionality with natural language processing, which actually dovetails nicely with curated content. If you get rid of interfaces then you suddenly have to be a lot more precise about what you're offering a business traveller. And by curating the content upfront and reducing the number of options, I think this feeds nicely into the chatbot, natural language and voice trend.
Mixing business with pleasure: While it's clear that there are distinct differences between business and leisure travel, the lines are blurring. More and more we are seeing that business travellers are experimenting with the idea of enjoying their trip beyond the business objective — proactively seeking opportunities to go beyond the airport, the hotel, the meeting location. In fact, the same survey I mentioned above found that 81% of respondents have stayed additional days at a business-travel destination for vacation and 20% of those indicated they do so often. Working out how to accommodate this within your travel programme is challenging but becoming important with prospective employees often using travel policy as part of their employment contract negotiation.
A unified approach to business travel and expense will continue to gain steam: A lot of players that were previously only offering travel booking tools are either partnering or acquiring expense technology. I've always believed in this unified approach to travel and expense. Today, with APIs and advanced technology, users are now able to select the right booking tool and the right expense tool per region, and marry them together to create that seamless end-to-end travel to expense experience.