What’s New in Corporate Business Traveller Booking?

Are business travelers using preferred booking methods or going rogue? And why? These are the big questions on the minds of today’s corporate travel managers, who work hard to design travel policies and services meeting their employees’ changing needs. Staying on top of runaway costs and keeping employees safe on the road are two primary concerns—but increasingly, so is adapting to a landscape that’s changing at lightening speed. Let’s sum it up this way: people who travel for business want their end-to-end experience to mirror their leisure travel experiences and that includes a booking process that’s easy, convenient, filled with options, flexible and user-friendly.

A tall order? Not necessarily, thanks to the next-generation corporate booking tools and services in the market today. But before rewriting policies and investing in new solutions, take a look at the most recent research exploring corporate travelers’ booking behaviors and preferences:

Both Traditional and Alternative Booking Channels Are Thriving

The GBTA Foundation survey of business travelers based in Europe’s three largest business travel markets (the UK, Germany, and France), Booking Behaviour: The Business Traveller’s Perspective, found that 3 out of 5 travelers in each country booked a business trip through a traditional channel (travel manager or corporate online booking tool [OBT]) while a similar number used an alternative channel (supplier-direct and OTAs) in the past year. It also revealed that while employees with OBT access are more likely to use a traditional channel to book their travel, employers should continue to accommodate alternative booking channels that can provide business travelers with better pricing, loyalty status and convenience.

This is reflected in the results of research from KDS, a global provider of integrated travel and expense management solutions. As reported in The State of Corporate Travel and Expense Management 2016, while 74% of respondents from the US and UK prefer to book all of their travel components from one platform, 37% are still booking each individual element of their travel supplier-direct as a matter of convenience. This suggests that companies are continuing to offer outdated travel booking systems delivering poor user experience and limited airline, ground, and hotel options to select from.

Learn about incorporating alternative booking channels into your travel policy in Travel 2.0: The Basics of Open Booking. And for a look at providing a successful customer experience from the travel supplier’s perspective, read Win Customers by Offering the Best Booking Experience.

Another insight from KDS is that the booking process might be “killing” business traveler productivity. Nearly half (44%) of professionals surveyed said they spend up to 60 minutes or more at their desk, during working hours, researching and booking travel. The bottom line here is that companies should make it easy—and quick—for employees to plan their trips if they want them to focus on the work they’re paid to do (as opposed to paging through airline and hotel prices for hours on end).

It’s About More Than the Booking Channel

It’s not just about prices and convenience. The best of both worlds is to enable business trip planners to book in a variety of ways—for a variety of services. These include the use of ride sharing and home sharing services (Explore these further in Why Travel Sharing Services Are Here To Stay) and the ‘Bleisure’ trend, which takes business travelers off to explore leisure travel activities. (Read more in The Trends Behind The Rise of Bleisure Travel and Clearing Up The Blurred Lines of Bleisure Travel Expenses.)

Skift’s Hannah Sampson summed up the approach companies should take in Traveler Centric Vs. Stupid Decisions — Corporate Travel Innovation Report, “Inflexible policies around travel don’t make much sense anymore; the key is finding a balance that has room for common sense but also lets travel managers meet their goals.”