Trends. They
come and go. Well, some do. And others linger to the point of outstaying their
welcome. So which will be keeping travel managers on their toes in 2016?
For the last
six years, the Business Travel Show has surveyed travel bookers, buyers and
managers from all over Europe to unravel the trends for the forthcoming 12
months; innovation that will make their jobs easier and more interesting and
issues that will challenge them.
This time last
year, the sharing economy took the award for ‘principal disruptor most likely
to impact the world of business travel’ and it’s still causing delight and
despair in equal measure.
Two years ago
the words ‘Airbnb’ and ‘Uber’ were just creeping into the English lexicon. Now,
business travellers are regularly booking hotel accommodation using sharing
economy providers, attracted by their convenience and value. According to our
survey, 17 per cent of them, in fact.
But the sharing
economy continues to cause headaches for travel managers, who are unsure whether
suppliers comply with duty of care legislation and their overall travel
programmes. In fact, when asked whether suppliers from within the sharing
economy were considered a threat or benefit to their travel programme, nearly
half of buyers declared they were still undecided.
So the sharing
economy will continue to be big news in 2016, as will technology-driven
services generally, which are now being developed with the travel managers’
interests at heart. TripBam, for example, allows travel managers to drive
compliance by controlling which hotels travellers can book and Cytere scrapes social media channels
to gauge the riskiness of a location, allowing travel managers to analyse local
sentiment and assess the safety of an area.
Duty of care
and traveller risk are also still very high on the agenda, particularly after
the terrorist attacks in Paris and the Russian airline explosion over the Sinai
Peninsula in October, explaining why 92 per cent of buyers accept that the duty
of care of their travellers is their responsibility.
Other trends that will impact travel managers in 2016?
The continuing evolution in travel distribution, supplier consolidation, the
increasing demand on buyers to provide travellers with tailored solutions, the
changing demographic and needs of travellers and the ongoing pressure to
communicate and enforce compliance.
All of these and more will be unpicked, discussed and
debated in the 60 sessions at the Business Travel Show conference – all free
for buyers to attend and designed to help them survive everything this industry
will throw at them for the next 12 months.
This post was written by David Chapple, group director, Business Travel Show, for Travel Daily. The Business Travel Show takes place on 24-25
February, Olympia Grand, London, and is attended by 250 exhibitors and 7,500
business travel professionals. Register for a free visitor pass at www.businesstravelshow.com.
Nice post. People who are really concerned about their health may take help from the free advertising online so as to make it more popular and amazing. Hope so that this will help us in making your business more profitable.
ReplyDeleteIn the era of digitization, travel industry is facing rapid transformation across all the facets.
ReplyDeleteFranchise Business Opportunity