CASE STUDY: Ten ways mobile is changing travel management

Mobile has changed travel management as we know it, so what can we expect next?

26 March 2015

Three of the four panellists agreed emphatically that the easy answer to the question was yes, mobile would mean the end of travel management as we knew it. Business Travel iQ shares ideas of how mobile is changing travel management from Aurélie Krau, ThinkTank; Glenville Morris, Mobile Travel Technologies; Nina Ruokonen and Andreas Wellauer, Galiant Consulting who shared their thoughts on whether mobile would be the death of travel management at the Business Travel Show Conference.

1. Travel managers are moving away from single source booking.According to Andreas, travel managers have been doing effectively the same job for the past 30 years. He contends that managers today manage travel according to supplier groups, (e.g. TMCs, air, hotel) but that in the future it will be organised according to the different data sources, e.g. direct airline data, Uber, Twitter, Facebook because...

2. Travel data will need to become interactive in the future. Traveller tracking tools and services need to become more interactive and enable the traveller to communicate up-to-date locations.

3. Customer support will evolve into 24-hour customer service.

4. Social media should be integrated into corporate travel management. "It's the avenue for response when something goes wrong," says Andreas.

5. Apps for corporate travellers are still in their infancy. Nina believes these will become a much more integral part of corporate travel management.

6. Travellers' expectations are converging. Glenville argued that travellers want to see the same things on their phones and tablets as on their laptops.

7. Data snacking will become more important. Glenville says people want quick information without having to open an app on their phone.

8. It's the year of payments. Apple Pay and Google Wallet/Android Pay are now being used extensively in North America and Glenville believes that this behaviour will inevitably migrate to Europe.

9. Travel management now has a cross-channel dimension. Social, local and mobile can all link and support direct intervention, says Aurelie.

10. There is a blurring between business and leisure travel. Aurelie says it is important to remember that a business traveller is the same person as the leisure traveller.

Here is Nina Ruokonen's interview with Business Travel iQ