Buyers manage traveler choices and corporate goals in the midst of changing times
Changes in business travel are occurring at light speed, and not just in one or two aspects, but seemingly across the board, from security and duty of care concerns to policies and technologies, like NDC, booking tools, travel apps and beyond. Much of it is designed to enhance the users’ acceptance and their experience. But the speed of traveler expectations is changing so fast, it’s taking the whole industry by surprise.
“It’s not just what the traveler can get right now but also the advancements they know are coming down the line like AI and personalization, which shape that expectation,” says Paul Tilstone, managing partner of Festive Road. “Essentially, things like the talent gap and a focus on wellbeing in corporate life all result in the traveler wanting to experience a sense of their value to the company in their travel program experience right alongside efficiency, and these two things will shape travel programs in the future.”
Will Tate, a partner in Goldspring Consulting, agrees things are changing super-fast with suppliers utilizing newer and more personalized technology to gain a closeness to the customer. As a consequence corporate travel buyers are constantly challenged with creating technological responses that rival what’s in the consumer space. “That creates a friction between the consumer experience of a traveler and the corporate experience,” he says.
Today’s business travelers are relying more on technology and social media forums to find quick answers and solutions, adds Albert Taras, president of TCG Consulting. Therefore, quick response, easy workflow and simplification are absolute musts for companies that want to encourage travelers to “buy-in” to the corporate program.
“Standardization is now more obtainable due to technology enhancements extended across the globe; and acceptance within markets that were slower to mature,” Taras says. “Companies with managed travel programs are faced with the ever-expanding challenge of non-GDS content with air, hotel, rail and ground transportation now more than ever.”
Where solutions are available, suppliers – including travel management companies – are turning to aggregators and/or developing direct connect solutions to display content beyond traditional methods. “Agency and supplier costs are increasing to fund the technology to support these changes or to cover lost revenue previously earned under the traditional model,” Taras says. “NDC is likely to alter this landscape further.”
The Consumer Rules It’s no surprise to anyone that consumer behaviors, tools and technology impact traveler expectations. Tracy Maier, senior vice president of BCD Travel, says she’s noticed a gap appearing as people blend their consumer and corporate lives more fully.
“That gap exists between what a traveler thinks should be easy to do and the considerations a company needs to take when deciding on tools and technology their travelers should use,” she says. “Travelers aren’t aware of all the considerations – such as interfaces, security and protocols – that executives recognize as a part of their corporate responsibility.”
Mike Boult, senior vice president of corporate sales at Travel Leaders Corporate, says corporate travelers expect what they have always expected – efficient, high quality service. “From their perspective, they want to focus on their business mission with a minimum of disruption and a maximum of comfort,” he says.
“What has changed is that we live in a mobile world. Travelers are used to pulling out their phones and using them to access and action real time events, and TMCs need to meet travelers’ expectations there.”
Today, mobile is the name of the game and booking, changing, getting help and interacting with a travel advisor all need to be done in the palm of the traveler’s hand. And since mobile technology changes at lightning speed these days, a good TMC needs to be in step with that to meet corporate travelers’ expectations.
Travel buyers must manage these changing expectations, especially in the context of policy and cost control priorities. The keys are communication and influence.
“There’s a lot of talk about program adoption, but most travel managers struggle with how to really drive it,” Maier says. “Traveler engagement needs to go beyond surface level. Give travelers an understanding of how travel touches not only them, but every department, team, and even every function in their organization. Buyers should be using consumer marketing techniques to drive traveler awareness and behavior. And leveraging merchandising techniques to influence buying decisions.”
I’ll Take Door Number Two The area BCD Travel sees driving the greatest value to the corporate travel program – and that is most at risk for companies today – is hotels. “Travelers like to make their own decisions. And now they have more booking options than ever, which means your program may not always be their top choice,” Maier says. “Especially if they believe they can do better deals on their own, using the tools and services that work for them personally. You can design a great hotel program, but if travelers don’t use it, you’re sunk.”
For that reason, BCD Travel utilizes consumer retail techniques to drive adoption and savings, building awareness of the hotel program through digital marketing strategies, instilling consumer confidence with broad content and price assurance technology.
“We influence traveler buying decisions with merchandising techniques. And we make travelers’ lives easier with a seamless digital experience,” Maier says. “Our goal is to create travel program advocates. As an example, one of our clients, a global consumer goods company, increased adoption of their preferred booking channel by 770 percent through our Traveler Engagement services.”
These included traveler e-mail campaigns, stakeholder newsletters, digital signage and infographics. Their preferred channel is TripSource, BCD’s total trip management platform.
Frequently, Boult reminds travel managers that they need to take a big-picture view of corporate travel. That is, they need to look at what the CEO sees as corporate travel’s purpose.
“About 99 percent of the time, the answer is that corporate travel investments are made to enhance business and employee relationships and to eventually grow the business,” he says. “Travel isn’t just a budget-line item. If a travel manager can learn to see corporate travel through the eyes of the CEO, they will be able to provide a better experience for the traveler and meet the company’s business objectives.”
In today’s environment, there’s a huge amount of technological and social change for the travel manager to contend with, Tilstone notes. He says the best approach is to take a step back and think about the objectives of the travel program in line with their corporation’s objectives and changing company culture.
“Take the time to talk with people and then challenge everything you’re doing and re-think why you’re doing what you’re doing in your travel program,” he says. “Decide what core deliverables you need to provide to your business and the travelers both now and in the future. Then, with this in mind, go and speak to your existing providers and go see what’s out there beyond that. The key to future success is truly knowing your own needs so you can define who and how they are delivered.”
Moving the GoalpostsCorporate goals and initiatives change and the industry evolves, but the traditional need to drive more savings remains at the top of the list. However now traveler experience and traveler safety aims join savings as a top goal. Meeting these three expectations – savings, experience, safety – is a constant balancing act for any travel manager.
BCD uses booking tools, technologies and new strategies to facilitate that balance. As an example, Maier explains, “Virtual payment automation with digital invoice management drives both process and hard dollar savings, makes payment and expense easy for travelers and keeps traveler and company data safe.”
Additionally, new technology enables companies more choice when it comes to customizing their travel program, though it can be overwhelming. “We developed SolutionSource to answer that need. It’s a BCD Travel marketplace where our clients can discover best-of-breed technologies that have what it takes to integrate into their programs seamlessly and securely,” Maier says.
Travel managers and TMCs have many masters to serve, all with their own expectations, Boult advises, so a sense of nimbleness is key against the backdrop of changing corporate goals and budgets.
Taras says policies and cost control priorities should be built around the core company strategic imperatives with the understanding that it is acceptable for company policy to evolve as required to meet those objectives.
“Travel managers must frequently review their policy and be willing to incorporate updates and communicate the changes in order to demonstrate that the company is staying on pace with its objectives for managing travel,” he says.
He explains that a fundamental rethink of where a program is built and managed – beyond air-hotel-car (direct spend) or even T&E – to look holistically at the entire ecosystem of travel, meetings, payment and expense and management allows companies to address maturity and user acceptance models.
“Additionally, category sourcing should run parallel and be considered in the overall program management strategy due to overlapping costs and revenue streams,” Taras says. “As programs move across the maturity scale, corporate travel buyers will find it increasingly difficult to identify new or incremental savings.”
Business + Leisure Consumerization makes today’s business travelers look for a seamless experience from beginning to end. But when the company’s travel program evolves, the result often runs counter to expectation.
“As policy and objectives change, travel managers can drive adoption to those changes with an innovative traveler engagement approach,” Maier says. “Consumer retail strategies can drive program and policy adoption, build consumer confidence and influence buying decisions, all without mandates. In fact, these strategies not only drive adoption to your program and policy; they win you loyal program advocates. The result: Happy travelers; happy travel and procurement managers.”
Hansini Sharma, engagement manager at Acquis Consulting Group, sees travel expectations changing as quickly as the products themselves are changing.
“Often, we separate corporate travel from leisure travel, which makes sense when it comes from the administrative side, but it doesn’t always make sense when you think about the user experience,” she says. “If a traveler is used to a sophisticated online experience with a carrier and getting rewards, but then they travel through work and aren’t getting those same benefits, in their mind, they should be getting the same rewards.”
That makes the travel buyer’s job harder than ever. Sharma tells her clients that getting feedback from travelers – either by a survey, focus groups or conducting interviews – can help them find the root cause of unhappiness and help them balance it all.
Tilstone argues that travel managers shouldn’t need to try and explain the balance between fulfilling consumer needs and exercising company control. It’s really about providing a consumer-grade experience and access to the right content through the managed channels, he says.
“I am sure that we will see technology seriously step up and develop some really great functionality to allow for broader content and much more flexible policy applications, rather than the static policy application of today,” Tilstone maintains.
“We are also seeing lots of challenge to the traditional travel program control of inventory,” he adds. “Both in air and hotel sectors there are pockets of buyers testing the principles of dynamic pricing to cater to both company value in terms of cost savings and wider traveler choice at the same time – and all within managed data flows. It will be interesting to see how these early adopters manage to better service the traveler’s highly consumerized needs.”
It is important to remember that corporate travelers are also leisure travelers, and in that context have often experienced a seamless, customer-centric experience. “They know it can be done, which is why badly managed corporate travel can be so frustrating,” Boult says. “And it’s not as if they can decide unilaterally to rid themselves of their corporate travel advisor. So frustration grows, leading to business travel being seen as a necessary evil at best.”
That’s where good travel managers can be worth their weight in gold. They are the conduit between the traveler, the TMC and the C-suite and are best positioned to manage each of these groups’ different expectations.
“I always encourage a travel manager to communicate early and communicate often, and to get travelers’ buy-in,” Boult says. “A great, and simple, way to do this is to just ask what they want. Be clear about the policy change and ask how you can meet their expectations within those parameters. You may be surprised at what they say.”