Finding and booking a hotel? Pre-ordering a taxi? Collecting receipts? In times to come, travellers won't have to do everything of their own accord - artificial intelligence and predictive analysis are revolutionising the industry as digitalisation takes hold. The key? The simpler the system, the higher the compliance. Among other things.
Achim Schmitz can hardly be accused of fear of progress. At the VDR's spring conference, where the Barcamp format was on the agenda for the first time, the man from Adidas was the forerunner when it came to tackling a thorny problem with the help of his companions. Such a thorny issue, that instead of closing the session with a conclusion, Schmitz closed it with a sigh. "Why can't I just make a booking like I did thirty years ago?"
Anachronistic? Far from it. Schmitz is not the only one dreaming of making his travel bookings with a single phone call to his secretary - just like in the past. He dreams of someone quickly and easily organising the best solution, taking what you want (preferences) and are permitted to do (travel policy) into account. According to the current Egencia Business Travel & Technology Survey, "half of all travellers want to speak to a person, should problems arise". And the 2017 VDR business travel analysis underlines the ongoing importance of "personal contact with capable contact partners and individual service". For example, if more than a point-to-point connection is at play or perhaps if the company's own OBE isn't doing what you want it to do.
"Back to the roots" then, as the VDR speculates: "Back to the roots of the service in the sense of 'human to human'"? Yes - and no. Thanks to the "three major revolutions, end-to-end, traveller centricity and Multisource", which will dominate the future of business travel - according to HRS CEO Tobias Ragge, as discussed in the Corporate Travel Forums (CTF) in Berlin - the travellers of tomorrow will hardly have to search, compare, check, book, pay or expense themselves. This is made possible thanks to integrated systems, which automatically take company policy into account, as well as individual preferences and safety-relevant criteria at the destination. However, the contact partners are new: expect Siri or Alexa to step up to solve problems, rather than a secretary.
Martin Biermann, HRS: The end of traditional search portals in five years
"Lost in processes" Some of the future world of simplicity already exists today. Chatbots are increasingly ensuring that the traveller can benefit from systemic support that can be accessed on the go, and that it isn't just in the form of a notification regarding a new departure gate. Furthermore, virtual credit cards can also do away with administrative burdens for business travellers, such as payment and billing, and thanks to this alone, the adoption rate of a HRS hotel program increases by an average of thirty percent, as emphasised by the CEO.
But this is only the beginning. The great promise of the future lies in digital end-to-end and door-to-door processes. And these, enthuses VDR President Dirk Gerdom, will "change the role of the individual toward greater autonomy". An unexpected side effect: digitalisation will return autonomy to travelling staff, which was taken away from them successively in years gone by. Siemens travel boss Thorsten Eicke calls it "ownership culture" at the CTF in Berlin, "a move away from a certain 'infantilising'," as he puts it. While travel management was devising ever more sophisticated strategies to integrate travellers and bring them on board with the travel policy - key word: leakage - they increasingly came to despair of ever more complex rules and regulations. Here the majority of employees wanted to do the right thing, recalls Eicke from Siemens. The only thing was, they got "lost in the processes". Or as UBS Executive Director Mark Cuschieri beautifully summarised during the VDR GBTA 2016 event, "business travellers don't question travel policy - but technology." From this perspective, companies such as Siemens have good reason to promise their employees that the "value added by future end-to-end processes will reduce their 'pain for travel'".
"Simplicity is the new reality."
What makes the difference between old and new technologies is evident for start-up stars such as Max Waldmann. Compliance is simply another term for docility, says the founder of hotel app Conichi dismissively. A synonym for a style of thinking summed up by, "how can I push my people into the system?" Failure is pre-programmed into such an approach. Therefore, he is convinced that "a system that employees actually want to use must be created". How should this be done? According to Waldmann, this is done with a system which is "convenient" to use, because its individual process steps are boiled down to "the absolute necessities". The conclusion? Reduce to the max!
Benjamin Park, Director Procurement and Travel at Parexel, has just introduced a system like this. That's because he assumes that in a few years' time, his travellers will "plan their travel during their journey, and soon, it'll simply be on a phone with some apps". The first apps are already in use, including one for travel expense report creation. "You can simply forward your receipts as an email attachment or take a photo with OCR recognition and send it via smartphone," enthuses Park, emphasizing that "the expense report almost completes itself; meaning the traveller no longer feels like a constant accountant."
A conversation with Martin Biermann makes it clear that it is convenience, above and beyond any other feeling, that takes on more importance than any other disruption. As Vice President of Product Development at the HRS Group, he is firmly focused on the future - and learning prediction systems play a decisive role. He and his team are currently working on a personalised proposal system, which only suggests hotels to corporate bookers that correspond with their interests and preferences.
Disruption due to digitalised convenience This personalisation is made by possible through constant tracking as coordinated by travel management. How does a specific guest search? Which detail pages do they look at? Does the user check the map view? Is the location a deciding factor? "We can view all of this and draw our conclusions from it," explains Biermann. And not just for the individual booking in this case. "We can guess the preferences of a new guest based on similar demographic characteristics and then determine the behaviour of other travellers from the same company. And by doing so, we can then - based on what are referred to as peers - make an appropriate suggestion, including the right hotel services, thereby removing uncertainty from the system."
And what exactly here is disruptive? It's quite simple. "In five years, we won't have traditional search portals any more," says the HRS Manager - in a calculated way. The vision behind all this sounds convincing. Going forward, HRS will have learning recommendation engines, meaning that travellers no longer need to set up a search. Instead, all they have to do is enter the city, date and number of rooms. The traveller is then shown three hotels options - all suitable - and the problem is solved. Even without searching and booking, it's about what is referred to as an itinerary solution: "if the system sees that I have a meeting tomorrow in Cologne, then it can take action entirely of its own accord and generate a booking."
At this point, it is clear that the new "simplicity" is a win-win scenario for both sides. The business traveller should be happy that no action is required - not even a call. Travel management however promise that such itinerary solutions mean procedural time savings of five minutes and more - per booking. Moreover, booking elsewhere won't even occur to such a satisfied employee, when it's otherwise made so easy. From a travel management perspective, this means that process costs are reduced and the adoption rate increases. On top of this, consistent end-to-end processes achieve unprecedented (data) transparency and thereby the capacity for control.
Nevertheless, as Benjamin Park points out, traveller centricity must remain the company's primary objective. "In a few years, when employees have a choice between two companies, they will opt for the one with a better travel expense program," says the head of travel at Parexel. "That either draws them in or they stay." And that's exactly why the maxim of Parexel reads as follows: "increase experience for travellers through new technology!" so that it will be even more convenient to book than it was thirty years ago.
