“As our working population changes, we can see the uptake of things that five years ago were not feasible”
50 million active users, and there are already some 300,000 Facebook Messenger Bots. Recent GBTA research suggests business
travellers from France, Germany and the UK are seeking to book via direct channels. The Concur-supported study reveals almost one third of business travellers in each country expect to use ‘alternative channels’ more often in the next year – that could be chatbots within Messenger, Skype, Slack or another chat service altogether. For Fidler it’s about new ways of working,
adding value as a travel team and trying to influence travellers via a two-way communication. “We can now distribute information to travellers quickly. We used to have to send emails to large groups and the open rate was not always good.”
TMCS GET SOCIAL While Microsoft might claim first-move ad- vantage in the use of these social tools, they seem now also to be catching on among travel management companies. Carlson Wagonlit Travel is one example
and although not a complete stranger to social-style tools in terms of hotel
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
reviews, the TMC is now planning to launch ‘social collaboration’ features on its mobile application. The initiative will come later this year
and the company sees a number of cases for use. For example, if a team is travelling to the same meeting, its members will be able to create a group within the app. According to Dan Kelly, CWT director of product market- ing for EMEA, the idea is for the travellers to collaborate around booking the hotel or suggest ideas, perhaps about restaurants. He says in discussions the TMC has
been having with its product development team as well as end users, “being able to collaborate socially with users was coming out a lot”. A second phase of social-style integration,
slated for the end of 2017, is something CWT is calling ‘Who’s Around’. The functionality enables anyone travelling on their own to see if other colleagues might be in the same destination or on the same flight. It is hoped this will allow corporates to
derive value, first through savings from shared airport transfers. And a second, softer benefit, is in generally breaking the
monotony for travellers by showing them who they might potentially hook-up with. Kelly says: “We know these are the sorts
of things travellers are asking for, which is why we’re acting on it.” He adds that the product development team is now working through the potential privacy issues, but believes that with people embracing these tools in their personal lives, it’s not too far a stretch to think they will do the same for business travel.
HELPFUL BOTS Metasearch company Skyscanner devel- oped group functionality for Skype last autumn. The service enables two people to interact with the bot in a single conver- sation. Currently the bot can help a group plan a trip with the same origin and desti- nation, but, for the future, it is considering how it might offer multiple origins to the same destination and even multiple ori- gins to different destinations. Skyscanner director of product Filip
Filipov says: “Our premise is that travel is inherently social – even business travel when you could be travelling in groups –
BBT May/June 2017 51
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