Opinion AUTOMATIC FOR THE PEOPLE New technology is going to affect the business travel experience for everyone
LAST YEAR BRITISH AIRWAYS became the first UK airline to permit gadget use during take- off and landing. It’s now only a matter of time before it becomes de rigueur for executives to be online at all times, regardless of whether they’re flying at 30,000 feet. So much for putting your feet up with a G&T and enjoying the latest in-flight entertainment. However, ‘off-duty’ time is incredibly valuable and many of us would regret losing more of it. But what does this mean for the future of business travel? With the tech-savvy Millennials having entered the workforce, a new breed of business traveller has emerged, forcing travel departments to rethink how they interact with their clients. Today’s young business traveller has radically different demands and expectations. Recognising
this evolution and adapting to different expectations and behaviours is a challenge that many companies are working on. Smartphones now fulfil the
dual role of friend and personal assistant, and the information- support and capability to change plans on the move is becoming an essential. The added value from a travel management company comes with solving problems such as weather disruption and personal emergencies – superior service which can never be underestimated. Peering into my crystal ball,
it’s easy to envisage this trend evolving, with the business traveller of the future enjoying a much more automated environment. A virtual personal assistant might store the traveller’s tickets and handle
their real-time itinerary, along with all their boarding passes and hotel check-in details. Any delays or cancellations might be automatically relayed to the relevant hotels, car rental firms or meeting participants, with the business traveller not having to lift a finger. Automation will, without a doubt, make the entire airport experience more agreeable as well. In my blue-sky scenario, business travellers with e-passports and smart visas in hand will walk briskly through terminals, uninterrupted by checkpoints or queues, the whole journey wirelessly monitored by smart sensors that ‘talk’ to their mobile device. Those important immigration and security touchpoints will still be around, but rather than being interrogated, the business
THE ONLY CONSTANT IS CHANGE
RECENT PRINCETON UNIVERSITY RESEARCH made the sensational claim that Facebook’s demise may be faster than its rapid rise, with predictions indicating it could lose 80 per cent of its followers by 2017. Just a couple of years ago pundits claimed instant messaging would soon replace email. And newspaper headlines have suggested that smartphone sales are now close to saturation point. It’s true that the majority
of people who wanted a smartphone now have one, so demand is slowing. Mobile functionality improvements have started to plateau, so developments are less likely to be as groundbreaking as in the recent past – but people like new gizmos and will continue to buy new phones.
The smartphone market
reached a milestone in 2013 with over 1 billion devices sold
It is essential to keep pace with today’s evolving business landscape to stay on top Over 2 trillion web searches
globally, and contributed to 55 per cent of total mobile phones sold overall. Newer buyers are being courted in developing regions, driven by the huge growth of low-priced-handset makers in mainland China. Having been dominated by giants Apple and Samsung, cheap rival handsets from China are now changing the smartphone market. It is reported that 90 per cent of all the data that the human race has ever produced has been generated in the past two years. Far from dead, email activity increases every year with close to 145 billion emails sent every day, with 50 per cent of mails reported to be opened through a mobile device. According to research company The Radicati Group, in 2013 there were 929 million business email accounts worldwide, and the number is expected to grow to over 1.1 billion accounts by 2017.
are estimated to be made every day; and every minute 278,000 tweets and 1.8 million Facebook ‘likes’ are posted. Technology is irrefutably part of our modern personal and business life and, whether you are a business travel buyer or a supplier, you may want to re-evaluate your thinking if you cannot see where mobility and technology can support the business travel programme. Innovation is all around us.
It is likely that in the next 24 months entirely new game- changing companies will start to dominate the business travel arena and existing players will metamorphosise to create a new business landscape. You need to understand what is happening around you and where the opportunities lie to be able to upskill for the future to protect your career, and ACTE exists to help businesses seize the
The GTMC column
traveller of the future might be fortunate enough to encounter an automated kiosk or robot immigration officer to give their biometric identification to, be it a fingerprint, iris or voice ID. While the above scenario may seem a long way off, with many bureaucratic hurdles to overcome, I’m sure you’d agree it’s a future that all business travellers can look forward to. And with any luck, with all the data available, airlines may even know how you take your G&T. Hey, a guy can dream can’t he?
Paul Wait is chief executive of the Guild of Travel Management Companies
The ACTE column
opportunities that will help them to grow and flourish. Upcoming ACTE education programmes, including those in London (March 4), Moscow (March 13), Dubai (May 20) and the Global Conference in Copenhagen (October 19-21), will showcase the innovation and creativity that is vital to make progress in this sector today.
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Caroline Allen is the Association of Corporate Travel Executives’ regional director. For more information visit
www.acte.org or contact
callen@acte.org
www.buyingbusinesstravel.com
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