TRAVEL BUYERS are going to have to move quickly and work together with suppliers and travel management companies (TMCs) if they are to keep up with the integration of social media in the corporate workspace and, more importantly, keep up with their travellers. Ever since the introduction of online booking tools several years ago, there has been a shift in the way travel is booked and managed, as employees logged on at home and booked their hotels and flights themselves. Now, armed with their smartphones and with easy access to user- generated content review sites, such as Tripadvisor, travellers are not only reading other people’s comments on the hotels they are staying in, but they are also looking for a way of communicating their experiences, good and bad, with a wider world.
no doubt, grumbles about their travel policy. So are they a help or a hindrance to the travel buyer and their managed policy?
TOO MUCH INFORMATION Carel Aucamp, global sourcing manager at Agrega, says that if managed correctly these online communities can be useful and that supplier reviews can help buyers – but opening the floor to travellers to comment on managed policy is not encouraged. “If you have instant reviews it’s really great but how do you ensure it does not become a moaning page?” he says. “Do you need an open blog to get this traveller feedback? In London, for example, we only contract six hotels and two of them are always new, and you can see which one the traveller favours each year, and that has a big impact.”
Where policy is concerned, buyers are interested in three
“If you have instant reviews it’s really
great, but how do you ensure it does not become a moaning page?”
This merging of social media from leisure time to the work environment is being dubbed the “consumerisation” of business travel. It’s such a growing trend that there was a whole session dedicated to the subject at the ACTE conference in Paris this autumn. We’re not talking about Facebook here – who cares if employees rant and rave about their terrible work trip to their friends? The traveller does not gain anything from it, except letting off steam, and the buyer will not hear about it, so the problem will not be solved. No, we are talking about a certain kind of consumer behaviour that has popped up in the corporate workspace: internal review platforms; company intranets; and products such as Yammer and Chatter, which enable employees to build a community and share experiences about the hotels they stay in, tips on cities and,
things. First, in streamlining and minimising waste, and in some cases online communities can show a travel manager where leakage is happening and why. Second, travel buyers are concerned with traveller safety and satisfaction, and these channels work with a managed travel policy because buyers can easily respond to a complaint (keeping the traveller happy) and be aware of where their traveller is (keeping them safe). Third, a buyer will be more in control of cost if they can look at where their managed policy can be tightened, as well as using traveller knowledge and reviews for negotiating with suppliers. Karoline Mayr, director of global travel procurement for US management consultancy Deltek, has been using social media channels within her role since 2009. “Travel managers say they are afraid to open the doors to these channels of communication but, from my