Five Millennial Business Traveler Must-Haves

Millennials’ travel preferences are of great interest to travel industry professionals—for good reason. Members of this generation are coming of age as consumers and professionals, so what they do and think make a big impact on suppliers’ product/service offerings and corporate travel program design and policy development. Fortunately for industry decision-makers and corporate travel managers who crave new insights, new generational research is always coming out to shed light on what’s needed to inform their strategy.

Let’s explore some of this recent research to reveal 5 need-to-haves to make a success of a Millennial’s business travel experience.

1. Opportunities to Travel

It’s clear that many Millennials want to travel for work. MMGY Global’s Portrait of Business Travelers shows that Millennials took 7.4 business trips in the last year, compared to 6.4 for Gen Xers and 6.3 for baby boomers. Perhaps more importantly, 59% of these individuals expect to travel even more—a claim made by only 33% of Gen Xers and 19% of boomers.

Millennials are in a sweet spot at the intersection of life stage and career that’s conducive to travel, for reasons ranging from conference attendance to professional development and training to pitching new business. Aside from supporting career growth, the opportunity to travel for business enables employees to enjoy new places (and even cultures), connect face-to-face with colleagues they don’t see every day and even have fun—experiences that add to job satisfaction.

This trend is investigated in Millennials: Eager Road Warriors?

2. Work/Life Integration

Forget about work/life balance—it seems Millennials are calling for integration.

MMGY’s report revealed that when compared with other age groups, Millennials say that traveling for work has a more negative affect on their family life. Maybe that’s why achieving balance is so important to them. Skift reports findings from a recent study from the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE): younger business travelers are more concerned with work-life balance (69%) than they are about safety (54%). But they’re most concerned about combining business and leisure (70%).

Discover The Trends Behind The Rise of Bleisure Travel.

3. Self-Service

Younger business travelers are well-connected (in terms of connected devices, at any rate) and are adept at independent, technology-enabled problem solving. To no surprise, Expedia’s The Future of Travel report found that Millennials value speed, flexibility, and autonomy over process. In the report, Egencia’s Kyle Davis says, “Millennials who have embraced self-booking for leisure expect the same easy, intuitive process for business travel.”

A compelling caveat to this point is that Millennials are accustomed to acting on “snap decisions,” so they don’t necessarily have to plan ahead. They’ve grown up with the ability to get online and make a purchase, schedule a flight, or address a customer service issue. Delve into this topic and more in the Tnooz article, Five Design Principles to Attract the Millennial Traveller.

4. Access to Technology

Self-service and access to technology go hand-and-hand, but the digitally native Millennials are hardwired with technology. That is, they’re especially quick and eager to adopt technology and expect tech-based resources to be made available to them across the travel experience. Mobile and Millennials: 4 Ways Hospitality Brands Must Accommodate, Technology Shakes Up the MICE Industry, and Hotel Tech Spending Keeps Guests Connected touch on this reality for travel suppliers across the industry.

As for comfort with using tech to plan travel, the Expedia report showed that Millennials plan and book travel on their smartphones more than any other age group—and even more telling, only 18% of them have not used a smartphone for travel. When it comes to business travel, specifically, 52% of those 30 and under (versus 21% of those 45+) have booked on a smartphone or tablet. This demonstrates Millennials’ use of multiple devices through the booking process.

Read Travel Apps: Usage, Awareness, and the Generational Divide for related insights.

Let’s not forget social media, as Millennials love sharing their experiences through social networks. A GBTA’s blog article reporting on a recent social media study predicts that as the number of Millennials in the workforce rises, social media is likely to become a much more prevalent component of the business travel experience.

Finally, GBTA research found that Millennials (along with Gen-X) travelers are much more likely than Baby Boomers to want to use mobile payments. See also Exploring the Generational Divide in Business Travel Preferences.

5. Sharing Services

Home-sharing, ride-sharing, and other sharing economy services are making a dent in business travel circles, shaking up corporate travel policies and causing traditional suppliers to shake in their boots. Consider these statistics:

• The MMGY Global report found that while 81% of respondents overall prefer to use ridesharing over taxis, 67% of Millennials say they’re interested in staying in a shared home.
• A Hipmunk study found that 74% of Millennial travelers (compared with 20% of Boomer travelers) have used a vacation rental service like Airbnb while traveling for work.
• According to CWT Travel Management Institute, twice as many Millennials (vs. non-Millennials) have used accommodation and transportation sharing economy services for business travel.

Get more expertise on this topic in Why Travel Sharing Services Are Here To Stay and Are Business Travelers Entrenched in the Sharing Economy?

For insights into the Millennial leisure travel market, read Do Millennials Make The Most Attractive Customers For Travel Companies?