“It’s also now got airport maps, which is brilliant for travellers who aren’t familiar with their airport, the distance between gates, or where the lounges and facilities might be.” HRG’s Pancaldi says one of the other major benefits of mobile technology is that it can give travel approvers the ability to sign off trips while they are on the road. “We see a lot of companies looking to use mobile for their approval processes,” he says. “The idea is to have a mobile device that enables them to approve travel for people who report to them. This is very useful for customers in sectors such as professional services or energy, where approvers are on the road all the time.”
BOOKING FUTURE One area where corporate travel apps have been slower to keep up with their consumer counterparts has been in the area of bookings. Some TMC apps are now offering booking facilities, particu- larly for products such as hotels and rail journeys, but the process of being able to book flights through these apps still seems some way off. Expedia-owned TMC Egencia has been leading the way in mobile flight booking with its Trip Navigator app. This now allows travellers to search and book flights, and features personalised elements, such as individual and company preferences. Booking air through the app was originally launched in North America and was rolled out to other parts of the world, including Europe, in late 2015.
CWT began offering hotel booking
through its app last year and al- though mobile still represents “a small number” of the TMC’s overall hotel sales, there has been an “upward trend” in bookings, particularly in the final few months of 2015. Corporate hotels specialist HRS also launched its own app last year, which automatically displays negotiated corporate rates for each traveller, as well as recording all booking details for invoicing purposes and offering special mobile tariffs. HRS’s head of product management, Heiko Reintsch, says: “As the functionality of booking engines continues to improve within the business travel industry, bookers will find they start to have more person- alised experiences similar to the consumer travel apps. “For example, we are trialling a recom- mendation engine this year which will
BUYINGBUSINESSTRAVEL.COM
see booking on mobile starting to emerge and grow.”
Key takeaways
Mobile use is set to grow even more rapidly as international roaming charges are reduced or disappear completely.
Booking hotels, rail and car hire through corporate travel apps is set to grow, although air travel is likely to take longer to be widely introduced due to its complexity.
Buyers can make a name for themselves by leading the process of drawing up a mobile strategy, including how devices should be used for travel.
Using mobile apps to complete the approval process can save time for managers with sign-off responsibilities.
Itinerary-based apps are set to become more ‘intuitive’ and offer more destination-based services.
“Mobile will be the single most important point of interaction through every stage of the trip with our travellers”
intuitively match the needs of the traveller to a recommended hotel.”
But what about booking flights via apps on mobile devices? HRG’s Pancaldi says it is being held back by the “layers of complexity” associated with air travel, which draw more scrutiny than other travel products.
“When it comes to complex air bookings, they are overlaid by different hierarchy and policy approval pro- cesses, which are more rigorous,” he explains. “We are not seeing a huge appetite for air bookings on mobile – but I think we will eventually
WHAT’S NEXT? As travel research firm Phocuswright points out in its Managed Travel: 2020 report, “predicting the future based on today’s technology can be challenging”, particularly when it comes to “disruptive” technology such as smartphones/tablets and the kind of services these devices may spawn. But the report adds: “What will dictate the level of change is how the emerging ecosystem embraces new tech- nology, understands traveller behaviour and meets expectations.” The report says that new mobile technology is likely to help the “tightly managed” corporate travel market to gain “even greater control” over their travellers. Phocuswright estimates that this group makes up 15-20 per cent of the entire managed market, and typically contains sectors such as financial services where travellers are often only allowed to download pre-approved apps to their company devices. More widely, Amex’s Konwiser adds: “How does mobile fit with online and telephone servicing? How do we interact with travellers in the overall programme? We are just barely exploiting mobile for what it could be and will be, which is the single most important point of interac- tion through every stage of the trip with our travellers. In future, if we fulfil the promise of the mobile platform, people will book more travel on mobile when sat at their desks than they will on the desktop browser in front of them.” The proliferation of mobile devices will also increasingly encourage suppliers to send offers and promotions directly to the travellers, particularly for ancillary prod- ucts while they are on the road – posing a potential threat to traveller compliance. Andy Slough, director of IT for Chambers Travel Group, says: “With the growth in mobile adoption for consuming travel on the move, ancillary products and upselling will certainly be a focus for travel suppliers. Clients will need to start to understand how this spend represents leakage from their travel programme.” This will represent another challenge for
buyers, which again reinforces the case for having a mobile policy that looks beyond the direct concerns of IT departments and considers how companies want and expect mobile devices to be used by their travellers in the coming years.
BBT JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2016 67
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