Samantha Williams, regional director, account management, Asia Pacific from Travelport and Ken Kuguru, managing director, Asia Pacific from Egencia took to the stage. Williams stressed that technology is crucial in driving corporate travel programmes, which in turn play an important role in attracting and maintaining talent. With an increasing number of job applicants asking to review a company’s corporate travel policy before accepting a job, it is crucial that travel managers have dynamic information on hand to formulate effective programmes.
Big data is nothing but a big black hole if it yields no actionable insights. It has to enable the understanding of travellers and their behaviours. The Future of Corporate Travel Products and Services in an age of AI, Big Data and ML was one of the topics addressed at ITB Asia’s C-suite sessions.
Samantha Williams, regional director, account management, Asia Pacific from Travelport and Ken Kuguru, managing director, Asia Pacific from Egencia took to the stage. Williams stressed that technology is crucial in driving corporate travel programmes, which in turn play an important role in attracting and maintaining talent. With an increasing number of job applicants asking to review a company’s corporate travel policy before accepting a job, it is crucial that travel managers have dynamic information on hand to formulate effective programmes.
“We have partnered with IBM to launch an industry-first AI travel platform to intelligently manage corporate travel spend,” Williams shared with Travel Weekly Asia. The platform uses IBM Watson technology to track, manage, predict and analyse travel costs, enabling managers to optimise their travel programmes.
Mobile-first strategies and blockchain are other trends highlighted by Williams. She shared that these technologies also impact corporate travel concerns, such as duty of care for its travellers and corporate transparency for its stakeholders.
Kuguru added that big data is an essential building block that enables AI and other technologies, and is in agreement with Williams that technology drives policies for the better good of corporate travel programmes.
This article is part of Travel Weekly Asia’s special report from ITB Asia 2018.