Travelling in the digital age has never been easier. We have seen TMCs innovate to serve the business traveller more efficiently. With current technological tools, business travellers can book, manage and monitor their travels.
There are other technology players that business travellers can utilise such as OTAs, hence travel managers have to keep an eye on visibilty and compliance. New innovations in technology not only ensure business travellers are on time and keep to schedule but they also ensure their safety.
“Technology and the travel industry have always been intertwined. As technology evolves, so must the products and services offered by CWT," said Kelly Kuhn, president, Asia Pacific, Carlson Wagonlit Travel,
“CWT has always been at the forefront, leveraging technology to deliver customised, industry-leading solutions to our clients. From our award-winning app CWT To Go, to industry studies such as CWT Travel Management Priorities, we are already delivering innovations for today’s world, tailored to the needs of our clients and their travellers, to help them make valuable business decisions and save costs.”
CWT provides an array of tools for travel managers and travellers in the area of safety and security. This includes a travel portal with access to the latest disruption and incident notifications, along with pre-trip safety and destination information. CWT’s real-time reporting allows clients to track travellers in real time when an incident occurs, both in report format and via a global map where specific traveller impact is highlighted.
CWT To Go, provides travellers with disruption alerts while they are on the move, including flight cancellations, delays, gate changes and destination information. CWT has also recently implemented hotel booking on the app. The app has been hugely popular with travellers as they value convenience and efficiency during a trip.
CWT’s door-to-door online booking tool CWT Online, gives travellers and their managers a full end-to-end view of their trip including estimated costs and suggestions for ground transport. This allows travellers to choose company-approved transport options and drives cost-effective decision-making, given the full cost of the trip is estimated for travellers and managers.
In addition, as travellers increasingly use peer group information to make decisions, in 2012 CWT introduced CWT Hotel Intel, a secure, company-specific travel review site that allows business travellers to share hotel ratings and reviews with their colleagues. This has helped clients facilitate information sharing among their employees in a way that supports compliance with their individual travel policies. Usage has also increased significantly – in 2013 there were 11,000 reviews, and by February 2015, this has grown to 50,000 reviews.
CWT also works with several industry-leading third party safety and security providers to provide clients with holistic safety and security coverage depending on their needs.
Indeed with technology, are the TMCs catering to the millennial travellers? They are the most tech-savvy among all the generations and embrace technological innovations happily. The expectations and behaviours of ‘the next generation of traveller’ are shaping many products and developments in business travel right now. Capturing the attention and imagination of this next generation of traveller is important for the whole business travel industry.
By the end of the decade, millennials - or those who are currently between about 18 and 34 - will be the biggest sector of the travel market. They are accustomed to having the answer to everything available at their finger-tips, and like to be constantly connected. Millennial business travellers - who were basically born with a smart phone in their hands – want to adopt technology quickly.
Said Andi Budd, vice president and general manager, American Express Global Business Travel, ASEAN, “The challenge for our industry is marrying the changing priorities and expectations of millennials, with traditional corporate priorities which remain heavily focused on compliance, security and travel and expense management. To solve this, we advise our customers to create appropriate travel policies and encourage loyalty and policy compliance, rather than demand it.
“We also recognise that, for the next generation of business traveller, their whole world revolves around their mobile phone and being constantly connected. In recognition of this, we formed a partnership with Sabre, allowing our travellers to directly feed trip details from American Express Global Business Travel into their TripCase app.
"All information - including automatic near real-time itinerary updates - is available on their TripCase app. It’s one more thing the traveller doesn’t need to think or worry about.
"Millennials also are used to the flexibility of being able to book travel online, anytime, which is offered through AMEX online booking tool.”
Added Kuhn, “Our recent CWT Travel Management Priorities 2015 report showed that mobile technology is expected to have a large impact in the Asia Pacific region, being ranked #3 out of 11 trends by global travel managers. Our various digital offerings, such as CWT To Go and CWT Hotel Intel, have gained great traction with the younger, more independent traveller, given their mobile and social aspects.
"With the use of mobile expected to continue to grow, we continue to look at how to leverage this platform fully to engage with the newer generation of business travellers.”
Currently in the pipeline for CWT are a number of projects lined up for 2015 and beyond. Its road map is developed based on three trends that CWT believes are shaping the industry.
The first of these is mobile. This year, CWT will launch several enhancements to the mobile booking experience on its itinerary and booking app CWT To Go.
The second trend is hyper-connectivity – the digital interaction of people and things – at any time, in any place. CWT plans to meet the growing expectations of travellers on the go by providing key contextual information while they are on the go, including trip disruption assistance, first/last mile trip information and new ways to interact with travel counsellors.
The third trend is personalisation – really ensuring the use of digital world and big data to connect with the traveller and offer them a service that is unique to them on a particular trip. Consumers expect customised information – what they need, whenever they need it. Several initiatives in 2015 will focus on providing information to travellers in a proactive manner to improve their travel experience and ultimately drive productivity.
One of the major milestones for this year will be the launch of CWT's upcoming new data reporting tool, CWT AnalytIQs. The tool helps companies translate data into insights on the entire travel process, and prepares them in an easy-to-read format for companies.
CWT AnalytIQs can be customised to an organisation’s specific needs to provide and facilitate travel managers better visibility and management of their travel programmes.