If apps and smartphones have given travellers untold freedom, why has compliance gone up? Stanley Slaughter investigates this apparent contradiction
It has been an abiding theme of the chattering classes in business travel over the past five years or so that technology is now king. In particular, especially in the last two to three years, they have remarked on the near avalanche of consumer-friendly apps and devices which have fallen into the lap of the business traveller. These allow traveller to change itineraries and books hotels and flights while on the road and effectively out of the grip of a travel policy and sight of their travel manager.
The result - general opinion went - was that smartphones and apps would reduce compliance and control, leading to all sorts of headaches for travel managers, including issues such as traveller safety, data collection and, with it, the ability to obtain the leverage necessary to secure good deals with suppliers.
Thus the result of an ACTE survey, released during its global education conference in Rome in October, came as something of a surprise. This found that far from falling, compliance was actually increasing. The report said: “In spite of much discussion about pressure from travellers to book trips independently, buyers say employees are becoming more compliant, not less. No fewer than 53 per cent have experienced greater compliance over the past two years, while only 8 per cent have seen compliance diminish.”
Most of the 300-plus buyers questioned in the survey said they expected levels of compliance to increase - at least in the near future - despite the growing range of apps and smartphone devices. The survey found that only 15 per cent of buyers expect compliance rates to be lower than current levels in two years, while 48 per cent are anticipating improved compliance from their travellers.
The survey result enabled Ludovic Ciannarella, director of global account management at Airplus, to announce, perhaps a little too hastily: “The revolution is cancelled.”
But it is a revolution which seems unwilling to go away. Carlson Wagonlit Travel’s Business Travel Trends for 2013 returns to the very same theme – referring to the “increased level of consumer-influenced technology available to the business traveller”, adding that “this type of technology is finding its way into corporate travel through services such as travel review sites and mobile apps specifically designed for business travellers”. Intriguingly it says that technology is going to be the traveller’s “best friend”.
Patrice Simon, CWT’s head of innovation, accurately captured what many believe to be the current situation: “Our travellers want to plan, book and manage their business travel as easily as they do their leisure travel,” he said.
Yes they do, but only they aren’t – if you believe the buyer respondents of the ACTE survey. (One assumes they did not tell absolute porkies to the people who sent out the forms).There seems to be a clear gap between what technology has enabled travellers to do and what they are actually doing.
But the gap may also be an illusion. Wiser travel managers were on to the ability of travellers, through smartphones, to fix and alter their itineraries while on the move and without reference to them pretty quickly. And many, seeing the way the world is changing, sort to harness this ability, rather than wax angrily and hopelessly against it.
The key to what is happening may be found in several of the other predictions in CWT’s Business Travel Trends. The first was that two thirds – a substantial majority – of global travel managers would implement strategies on social media to make travelling a better experience for their road warriors – this is exactly what the wise ones have been doing from the start.
Second was an increased use of hotel reviews posted by corporate travellers. One in three business travellers already post reviews of properties they have stayed in. CWT believes these could play a larger role in a company’s decision on which hotel chains to strike deals with. It also has the added attraction in making the traveller feel that he or she has some input into the travel programme. Thirdly, gaming technique (much heralded as gamification) may be used more widely as an incentive for travellers to comply with their company policy.
If, as CWT also predicts, companies become more aware of the stress incurred by travellers and seek a better work/life balance for their employees, involving them in how and with whom they fly and stay, could play a vital role in achieving this.
Far from being over, the revolution may not have even begun or is currently in its infancy.