*GUEST BLOG* Road to Rail - How changing my travel method improved my working life

I’m three months into a new role with Seatfrog and I’ve been reflecting on how much my work life has changed. 

I spent three and a half years working in the telematics industry providing tracking devices that monitor vehicle location and driver performance. We obsessively preached how driving for work is the single most dangerous activity, even more dangerous than deep-sea diving or coal mining.  

Ironically, during my mission to visit as many customers as possible, I was racking up 2,500 miles every month. And in doing so, I spent hours of my valuable work time being behind the wheel. Thinking back, I realise the impact this downtime had on my productivity, work-life balance, driving quality and general well being. 

Here are some of the negative effects:

●       Rushed meals behind the wheel

●       Distracted driving, like talking on the phone or sneaking a look at messages

●       Backaches from long periods of driving 

●       Increased time pressure to meet deadlines 

●       Evenings spent catching up on emails

What’s changed?

In my new role, which encourages train travel wherever possible, I’ve experienced a big change in my quality of life.

Being unshackled from the wheel has transformed my travel time into a highly-productive part of my day or simply an opportunity to chill out, arriving refreshed and focussed. I may leave earlier or get home slightly later but evenings are now my own time. No mountains of emails to trawl through.

Other life improvements include no more back problems, insanely reduced odds of being involved in a serious accident and reduced travel stress.

Compare a recent trip to Manchester which took just over five hours by train to when I last drove which took four and a half hours with no traffic. Imagine what you can accomplish in five hours and the perceived benefit of arriving thirty minutes earlier becomes totally insignificant. Yes, trains can be delayed, but the same can easily be said for delays from roadworks and accidents whilst driving.

Summary

A vast amount of the workforce takes to the road every day particularly those working in sales or account management. Whilst rail travel isn’t a suitable alternative for everyone, many could benefit from leaving the car at home. In my experience switching from road to rail could be an excellent investment in your career and yourself.  

This blog was posted by Matthew Vass, UK Sales & Partnerships Manager, Seatfrog, https://seatfrog.com/

*GUEST BLOG* Anticipating Change: Effective Business Travel Management in an Age of Uncertainty

If the past few years have taught us anything, it is that in managing international travel, we need to expect the unexpected.  The shifting of political tides, increasingly common natural disasters and quickly implemented travel bans have certainly kept us on our toes.   

Immigration and travel have moved up the political agenda.  Protectionism in in vogue and politicians the world over are driving huge changes in policy which are impacting the way that business must manage their international travel.

In the United States we have seen significant restrictions on the Visa Waiver Program, including prohibitions by the Trump administration on an increasing number of nationalities.  In the United Kingdom, Brexit has created anxiety around the future ease of travel between Britain and the EU.  Most recently, politics have taken a backseat to public health in driving travel restrictions as we have witnessed hastily arranged travel bans implemented with the aim of curbing the spread of coronavirus.

So how do we stay ahead in this environment and ensure that we have a proactive policy approach designed to create effective crisis management strategies?  Through experiences over the past few year of this constantly changing landscape we have learned some crucial lessons.  Below are some measures that companies should take today to help to better prepare their business for this new, changing environment. 

Seek effective partnerships

Given the multitude of challenges in the industry today, companies seeking to remain agile and forward thinking are partnering with experts to help monitor and mitigate risk.  Embedding this expertise through strategic partnerships will help to save costs and create a more reassured travel population overall. 

Businesses should not write policy on the basis of media reporting.  As we have seen recently with reporting on Brexit, conflicting information in the media can cause greater confusion in difficult times.  Strategic partnerships will help guide you by providing advice that you can rely on to help you to achieve some stability when there is uncertainty.

Know your current policy and work toward further development

Understand what the policy is around business travel bookings and ensure that the policies in place are followed.  Your ability to determine the potential business impact of changes and to respond quickly is highly dependent on the quality of your policy.  If there is no central policy for booking travel and governance to ensure that the policy is being adhered to, individuals could be booking and expensing travel outside of the company policy which can complicate identifying those impacted when there is a change or crisis. 

Know your people and populations

At the most basic level, it is essential to know who your business travellers are.  This may seem like quite a simple task, but it can be challenging to track without good governance in a business travel policy.  Knowing your travellers also means knowing where they tend to travel to, what types of activities they generally conduct when travelling to these countries and what visas or work permits they hold. 

Know the pitfalls

Compliance with local immigration rules is crucial to effectively managing your business traveller population.  Running afoul of local immigration rules could cause unwanted exposure to the company, your employees and potentially even your clients.  One way to manage crisis is to avoid it in the first place with good policy around business traveller compliance.

Finally, it is important to be flexible and alert. In this modern world that we live in, it is impossible to plan for all eventualities.  We must remain educated on the landscape that we face, maintain excellent corporate policies with good governance and partner with providers that we trust.  These strategies will help us to prepare us as best as possible to face the next inevitable curves in the road ahead.

This blog was written by Jennifer Fackelman, Senior Manager with Fragomen LLP who will be exhibiting with Nomadic at the Business Travel Show on the 26^th and 27^th of February.  Come by Stand: B248 to meet the Nomadic team and attend a mini education session on Wednesday at 14:00.

Register for FREE www.businesstravelshow.com

Photography by Nandan Prabhu Photography

*GUEST BLOG* What is the Government’s approach to sustainability and what impact can it have on travel management?

There has been much written about national and global targets to manage carbon emissions and the best route forward to support a more sustainable future. So what is the current situation and how can businesses and travel management professionals work with TMC’s to apply these directives to achieve a more sustainable approach to travel?

Currently the UK has a target to reduce emissions by 80% by 2050. This was first detailed in the 2008 Climate Change Act and is often defined as achieving “net zero” greenhouse gases in the next 30 years. In short, emissions from homes, industry and transport must either be avoided completely or offset by planting trees. To continue its efforts to realise this ambition, the government has committed over £3bn to support Research & Development for low carbon projects until next year as part of the Clean Growth Strategy. This has also been supported by investment in the development of offshore wind capacity and solar power.

In more recent times there have been calls for a more practical approach that extends beyond simply planting tress - namely investment in environmental projects aimed at reducing future emissions, such as the development of clean energy technology. From a fiscal point of view it is also possible to claim capital allowances when you buy energy efficient or low carbon technology for your business, so it’s worth bearing in mind as a tax incentive.

The Government’s 25 Year Environment Plan: progress report highlights the advances made as part of its commitment to a clear and transparent reporting of progress to Parliament. Key developments have included minimising waste and action on plastics, which is important to bear in mind for companies keen to implement their own sustainability policies and KPIs.

From April this year the Government’s new controls on plastics come into effect. This will apply to plastic straws, drinks stirrers and plastic cotton buds. This is in addition to the EU’s own plan to place a wider ban on plastic items, including cutlery and plates, by next year. Many businesses have adopted their own policies as a result and the launch of the UK Plastics Pact in 2018 included a number of household names such as Sainsbury’s, Coca Cola, John Lewis and Unilever, all committing to delivering real change in the way plastics are produced and used.

So what does this mean for business and business travel? Such government policies and pledges can certainly act as signposts to inform how to implement sustainability policies – both from an operational as well as a travel point of view. The key is to stay informed. If you are looking to invest in a carbon off-setting scheme do your due diligence into its operations and deliverables, ask your supply chain what steps they are taking to reduce their impact on the environment and inform your travellers of the options available for a more sustainable trip so they can feel confident in the travel choices being made. And all that starts with an effective travel policy that balances the scales of environmental consciousness and the commercial needs of an organisation, without overlooking traveller wellbeing.

Such approach to your travel policy can take many forms: favouring the use of public transport rather than private transfers, only permitting hire of electric vehicles or considering mixed mode itineraries, can prove fruitful to companies’ endeavouring towards a more sustainable operation.

Blog post written by Direct ATPI. Register for FREE and visit them at stand B440 - www.businesstravelshow.com

*GUEST BLOG* How travellers will use technology in 2020?

By Fiona Shanley, Chief Customer & Marketing Officer, Travelport 

If you’re a member of Generation X, as I am, you probably remember making phone calls from your hallway at home and only sending emails from the office. We read travel inspiration catalogues and reserved our trip on a Saturday morning trip to the local High Street. While it’s easy to take for granted the devices almost all of us now carry 24/7, the continued advancement of mobile connectivity in the last few years means more of us than ever are now being inspired, planning, booking and managing travel through our mobile phones.

With this in mind, we’re looking at the trends shaping mobile travel at the start of a new decade and the traveller behaviour that’s shaping how our industry works. Here are the findings of our recent research and the 9 things you need to know about consumer-facing travel technology as we start the 2020s.

Researching your trip

Peer to peer recommendations remain the most influential source of information for consumers. The same behaviour occurs in the travel industry with review sites (such as TripAdvisor) the ‘go-to’ research resource for over 80% of travellers.

We’re also using the capability of our mobile devices to find new ways to research travel options, including voice search, which will increasingly be available within your favourite travel apps through the next decade:

1. Voice search continues to gain traction as a research method with 40% of travellers using it, up from 23% in 2018.

2. Voice search is even more widely used by business travellers, with almost 60% using it in 2019.

Booking on mobile 

Booking travel is quite a fractured experience for the majority of travellers. Only 36% of respondents said they booked their whole trip through one website or mobile app. When you factor in research the number of touchpoints grows. A clear trend we are seeing is a willingness to book on mobile if the content is right for the traveller.

3. The vast majority of travellers (~75% of Leisure and ~80% of Business) have booked and paid for travel on their mobile.  

This trend is unlikely to change. Over the next 10 years, mobile will become increasingly prevalent as a travel booking method. Our research highlighted that the over 55s are the only age group not to have embraced booking on mobile. As the population gradually gets older the majority of travellers will be the digital natives of today (current 18-40-year olds) and more likely to continue their current behaviour of booking through their mobile

4. 84% of Gen Z and Gen Y respondents have booked and paid for a trip on mobile versus only 40% of the over 55s.

Communication creates connection 

As we’ve shown, lots of travellers are already booking online and through their mobiles. What their travel agencies do after a person has made a booking will be the key to building loyalty with that customer. Offering a discount or sending special offers is the minimum consumers expect from any retailer. Added information and relevant, timely customer service are likely to take that relationship a lot further. 

The biggest frustration travellers have is getting access to new information once their trip is booked. Our research shows many travellers are open to hearing about opportunities to enhance their travel experience through adding ancillaries like in-flight wi-fi or checking an extra bag after making their original booking.

5. 56% of travellers want to see the availability and cost of extras such as the ability to choose your seat, look at the menu, check if wi-fi is available and what the baggage allowance is  

Over 80% of travellers using apps said an update on the trip status is the most important notification they could receive. However, push notifications can play a role in the sales process too.

6. 82% of app users want to receive push notifications about changes to the price of a flight they had been considering and reminders about flights they had left abandoned in their cart.

This shows travel brands that travellers are always open to relevant communication while they’re planning their trips, before and after booking. 

Time to get personal 

We live in a world of big data. Our ability to understand huge data sets in order to gain insights about the people represented within them is growing thanks to AI and machine learning. Personalization as a trend will continue to grow in importance, whether it’s tailored offers or the ability to self-serve, travellers want more control over their trips.

7. 82% of respondents said they were in favour of receiving a shortlist of branded offers, being able to purchase add-ons, and to give airlines more access to your data to facilitate more personalization.

8. 35% of travellers said they get annoyed if companies they use regularly do not remember their preferences.

While a little over a third might not seem that significant, in an industry the size of ours that is a lot of people and these people are likely to be regular travellers. Think about a CFO who travels first class to regional offices every quarter, who likes to stay in the same suite in the office-adjacent hotel and prefers to drive themselves to and from the airport in 7-series BMW. This is a high value traveller and well worth remembering. If you can communicate with her before she comes to you and let her know these preferred services have been booked and confirmed, you make her PA’s life easier and her trip less stressful. 

App, app and away

As you may expect, younger travellers are more likely to use apps. The range of activities covers all aspects of the trip including flights, accommodation, car, and bleisure. Regardless of how the booking took place, approximately 40% of travellers want to be able to manage all aspects of their flight from an app.

9. 87% of travellers have the same or more travel apps on their smartphone in 2019, a 5% increase on the previous year.

The internet is becoming increasingly ‘mobile-first’. The amount of traffic from mobile has overtaken that from desktops in recent years and smartphone sales have been a multiple of PC sales for a long time. In the eyes of Google, how your websites look on mobile is more important than how it looks on a desktop.

A lot of the stats uncovered in our research back up the move to mobile by consumers and particularly travellers. Creating a digital travel experience through mobile communication should be a priority for travel agencies in 2020.

To find out more, download our Consumer Trends Report. You can also download our Mobile Trends Report 2020 and our Online Trends Report for even more information.

Visitors can reserve a meeting with the Travelport team or request an NDC demo at BTS here: https://marketing.cloud.travelport.com/bts-2020 

Register for FREE and visit the team on stand B1400 now www.businesstravelshow.com

*GUEST BLOG* How Carbon Offsetting Can Work for Business Travellers

When work calls for employees to travel to places unreachable by the more carbon-friendly options of train, bus or car -- they fly. However, flights are a huge contributor to the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere, a greenhouse gas that leads to global warming. Carbon offsetting of flights is becoming a popular way to understand emissions as travellers look to take action for a better future.

Several charities and programmes are working to reduce the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere through projects funded through donations. Now that it’s easy to generate carbon impact data through travel management platforms, travellers and their organisations can see their emissions in tonnes and donate the price equivalent to these programmes to help offset their carbon footprint.

Carbon offsetting programmes usually consist of two different kinds of projects: forestry or energy. Forestry projects stop trees (nature’s carbon solution) from being cut down or provide for the planting of new ones, and energy projects reduce fossil fuel consumption by investing in energy efficient products or renewable technology.

It’s important to remember that donations to these programmes do not instantly offset emissions. Understanding and utilising these environmental projects truly indicates the slow process of resolving our carbon impact - so offsetting can serve as a motivator to help change habits and decision making when it comes to travel.

Choosing Efficient Carbon Offset Programmes

Technology is being improved all the time and carbon impact data can now even live inside your corporate travel booking platform. With this data on hand, if employees do choose to harness that information for offsetting, it’s important to understand how to select efficient and reliable programmes.

Efficient programmes exist, just consider these three factors:

·        Additionality: Carbon offsets must be additive to those planned or expected from existing projects and initiatives.

·        No Leakage: The project can’t be increasing emissions somewhere else whilst it’s reducing them in others.

·        Permanent: A project where the output won’t be reversed in the future.

Why Enable Employees with Carbon Emissions Data?

Providing your employees with data on their individual carbon impact enables them to make environmentally-conscious decisions that can reduce your company’s emissions overall. It’s not hard to do with advancing travel management platforms providing carbon impact data now. Additionally, travelling sustainably is often more cost friendly and might positively impact your T&E spend as a by-product.

Providing employees with this information communicates a wider corporate social responsibility (CSR) message from the business, gaining buy-in and contributing positively from a company culture standpoint. It enables environmentally conscious employees to understand the impact of their business travel decisions and gives them an opportunity to turn that information into aid.

Learn how to make incremental changes that work towards a sustainable future and still harnesses the power of in-person communication with TripActions latest eBook - Taking Steps Towards Sustainable Business Travel.

TripActions are exhibiting at Business Travel Show. Register for FREE and visit them at stand B322, www.businesstravelshow.com

*GUEST BLOG* Mix people and platforms to build a high-performance travel programme

No matter how many objectives you’ve mapped out for business travel in 2020, you’ve only got one goal: to run a successful corporate programme. I’m here to tell you that four managed travel strategies will get you there, no matter what success looks like for your company and programme.

1.       Engage your travellers.

2.       Take good care of them.

3.       Let data drive your decisions.

4.       Create a scalable programme.

These four strategies require both great people and innovative technology. That’s not news to travel buyers. A recent survey by The Beat shows 87% of travel buyers value professional and responsive agents above all else. But digital capabilities aren’t far behind: 85% of travel buyers say getting accurate and timely programme data from their travel management company is critical.

At BCD Travel we’re constantly thinking about how best to configure the talents of our people and the ingenuity of our technology to meet corporate travel programmes changing needs. Those four strategies are at the heart of everything we do.

Engage your travellers

Traveller engagement is about balancing business objectives with traveller-friendly booking options and frictionless trip experiences. The aim is to gain travellers trust, inform their choices and, ultimately, increase traveller productivity while cutting programme costs.

Strong engagement tactics treat travellers like the consumers they are—reaching them with targeted merchandising and informative messages that show up at the right time. Engagement influences travellers booking and spending decisions, and it gets results. In just three months, our client Finastra, a U.K.-based financial technology firm, saved more than US$650,000 through traveller engagement.

Take care of your travellers

The coronavirus, Brexit and the wildfires in Australia all serve as timely reminders that we can’t eliminate hazards faced by business travellers. But we can mitigate them with a modern risk-management model.

On the people side, providing travellers with emergency numbers answered 24/7/365 is invaluable in building traveller confidence that you’ll take care of them. But you can’t just wait for that call. You must leverage digitalisation to locate and communicate with travellers in a crisis.

Domino’s harnesses the capabilities of BCD’s DecisionSource®, TripSource® and SolutionSource® platforms to increase the safety of employees, whether they're traveling for business or commuting to the office. A bonus: Duty of care improvements boosted booking compliance by 21 percentage points in one year.

Drive better programme performance with data

Any decisions you make for your programme should be backed by data. Period. That’s why we care so much about the quality of the data we collect and consolidate. It’s also why we make booked data available to our clients in just 30 minutes. That ensures your dashboards and reports are accurate and actionable in the moment.

RELX, a global information and analytics firm headquartered in London, relies on BCD to consolidate third-party data worldwide. Hear from RELX’s travel leader about how high-quality data enables insights and innovation.

Build a tailored programme with scalable platforms

Your business is unique. Your travel programme should be, too. What if you could create a programme tailored to your company culture and policies? One that offers:

·        The best travel content available, at the best rates, from multiple sources

·        A consumer-grade traveller experience driven by profile-based recommendations and service

·        Reporting and intelligence that allows you to make quick, informed decisions

A platform approach makes all of this possible by allowing you to integrate and distribute new technologies, content and suppliers with agility.

BCD is a full-service digital provider. Over the past five years, we have put 35% to 40% of our earnings back into the company to invest in our people, technology and infrastructure. That enables us to build flexible, open platforms primed for what’s next; partner on industry advancements; and meet clients’ changing needs without ever losing sight of what really matters: running a successful programme that keeps your travellers moving safely and smoothly so your business grows.

I’d love to talk about how your travel programme is adapting to change. Meet me at the Business Travel Show, 26-27 February, Booth B320. See you there! Register for a free visitor pass www.businesstravelshow.com

This blog was posted by Heather Wright, vice president of Global Product Marketing at BCD Travel.

*GUEST BLOG* Please Sir, I Want To Take A Business Trip

How the tedium of approval stresses travellers out – and inflates costs

People often have a romantic view of business travel – flying business class, five-star hotels, lobster dinners, piling up the points, cutting epic deals. And sure, it has its perks! But ask anyone who travels more than three or four times a year, and they’ll tell you it can be stressful too.

For many travellers, the stress begins long before they board the plane. Getting approvals, for example, can be a soul-cleaving experience.

Most companies demand employees seek approval before booking. And in theory, this makes sense. Companies don’t want employees booking trips willy-nilly, racking up costs.

But pre-trip approval processes have become so onerous that the booking experience is about as streamlined as a Lego bulldozer.

This applies across Asia. In India and China, travellers can require four or five levels of approval before booking. Even in Singapore, that beacon of efficiency, travellers may require two or three. So, they typically wait around three days – sometimes even a week – before booking.

As mortals wait, airfares rise.

In Asia, business trips are usually booked two to four weeks in advance. Waiting three days bumps airfares up four per cent on average. A week? Seven per cent.

Worse, if the fare goes up in the interim, it can be back to square one – the company’s travel policy might require the traveller to restart the entire approval process all over again.

You might ask: “Isn’t the ability to hold a booking one of the benefits of using a travel management company?”

And the answer is yes – but only for certain fares. It doesn’t apply to cheaper fares, which are ticketed instantly. Consider China, where approximately half of all airline seats are ticketed instantly, and these are around 30 per cent cheaper than the flexible seats.

It seems absurd to waste your travellers’ time – while costing the company money. Particularly since a whopping 98 per cent of trips are approved in the end. For domestic travel, approval rates are even higher.

What to do?

Start by identifying which trips require approval. Then set thresholds. For example, you can modify your policy to auto-approve any flights under US$500. And for flights over US$500, if fares increase only 10-12 per cent while you’re waiting for approval, you’re good to go.

Next, consider post-trip instead of pre-trip travel approval. Since almost all trips get approved anyway, just trust your employees to do the right thing. Deal with issues when they file their expenses after the trip.

And of course, use technology. Some apps send push notifications when a trip needs approval. This can cuts approval times massively. Technology can also auto-approve trips if the approver doesn’t approve them in time.

We’ve worked with our clients to find savings of up to five per cent. That might seem piffling, but when you’re spending US$5 million a year on flights – not uncommon for mid-to-large sized companies in Asia – that’s a quarter of a million dollars. Plus you have happier and more productive travellers. Result!

Blog Author: Akshay Kapoor, Senior Director, Multinational Sales, Asia Pacific, Carlson Wagonlit Travel. CWT are exhibiting at Business Travel Show, register for FREE now and visit the team on stand B230 www.businesstravelshow.com

*EXCLUSIVE Q&A* Business Travel Wellbeing Community

Business Travel Wellbeing Community was started by a group of like-minded people who wanted to change business travel for the better, and who felt that the best way to go about this was to focus on helping people with their mental health, physical health, jet-lag, sleep management, recovery, thriving and calm mind-sets and cultural intelligence. 

We find out more in this exclusive Q&A with co-founders of Business Travel Wellbeing Community; Dr. Lucy Rattrie, John Lee, Katie Virtue and Matthew Holman.

What inspired you to co-found BTWC?

We are business travellers, love working in the industry and are passionate about people doing incredible work. We have been frustrated that wellness challenges are not being addressed, despite statistics and anecdotal reports emphasising the importance of wellbeing. We want to enable people, organisations, and the industry to flourish, so collectively founded a global community with no hidden agenda and a values-based purpose.

Thankfully, traveller wellbeing is a topic gaining momentum, confirmed with a 2019 report revealing 89 % of organisations polled will increase their approach to wellbeing in 2020. We realised the people who matter (that’s the business travellers btw!) were not being asked what they want, need, think, so felt the need for something different, radical, right.

What excites you most about BTWBC?

Harnessing our collective energy to make a difference in the industry, speaking as a single voice that puts people at the heart of actions! A central point will bring together opinions, insights, knowledge to address challenges faced, guide people, organisations, suppliers, and professional bodies in decision making and action, bringing sustainability and putting people first.

What will make traveller wellbeing front and centre for the next ten years?

The increasing impact to travel programmes, high turnover, absenteeism, increasing fears around risk (amongst other factors) are causing travel managers and HR to take ownership. We expect the travel-HR conversations to become status-quo, driven by internal advocates, willingness to allocate budget and resources to help travellers, and suppliers who up their game. It’s been accepted for a long time that people are the heart of HR, and we feel people will soon be viewed as the heart of travel management – taking a balanced view and stopping a dominant default to savings, compliance, cost etc. We expect a change in travel policies to become more people-centric, with a degree of flexibility to enhance wellbeing.

Building a global community around wellbeing is a crucial first step, but ultimately, the leaders will make a difference and be recognised as first movers, courageous in taking a holistic business metric view.  Wellbeing is not an easy topic as the KPIs and business metrics to follow can be difficult to measure or take time to emerge.  They don't appear in any profit and loss account, but they do have a considerable business impact.  Losing a talented employee to anxiety, stress or burn-out can cause a ripple across an organisation beyond just their direct salary. Some are leading the way and we’re looking forward to seeing how things develop.

Business Travel Wellbeing Community are exhibiting at BTS wellness retreat. Register for FREE now www.businesstravelshow.com

*GUEST BLOG* Top 5 ways to deal with business travel stress

Business travel can be stressful. One of the ways to monitor the travel worries of employees is through regular surveys about their views of business travel. In a recent survey, over 100 points of potential anxiety for travellers was identified, ranging from planning a trip, not knowing the location well, delays, cancellations, language and culture to home-related stresses including childcare, pet cover and personal social commitments.

To achieve a less stressful travel experience, travellers are encouraged to embrace ‘Smarter working’ – a unique approach to booking and travelling.  

Matthew Holman, Head of Traveller Wellbeing at Capita Travel and Events, shares his top five tips to dealing with business travel stress:

1)     Book Smarter

Changes to the way we plan travel and book, such as advance booking as well as integrated itinerary information, a traveller can prepare mentally for it.   When changes happen during the trip, travellers benefit from our support and our technology, which has been developed to provide relevant and timely communications to help them.  After the trip, we encourage the traveller to take time to recover and prepare for their next activities.

2)     Sleep is key

When travellers fly long-haul, their circadian rhythm is disrupted.  On average, it takes one day for each one-hour time zone change to reset your circadian rhythm to its home settings. We encourage travellers to sleep well and avoid stimulants, such as caffeine after lunch or alcohol in the evening.  

3)     Educate on coping strategies?

One of the best coping strategies I recommend for travellers is to practice mindfulness and breathing exercises.  When travelling, try to stay connected with home and your normal routines.  If you use the gym at home, make sure to pack your kit so you use the gym when travelling.

4)     Understanding of individuals’ needs

Managers need to seek deeper and more-connected relationships with their employees. They should focus on understanding what the challenges are for the individuals and, where they see something that they are worried about, they should be open to having a discussion to understand the employee’s issues.  The best leaders are the ones who show their employees empathy and compassion.  Simple steps, such as making sure travellers are fit to travel before their trip, making sure the traveller has downtime when they travel and are allowed the time to recover make a difference.

5)     Not travel

It may sound obvious, but travellers should really question whether they need to travel in the first instance. Is the trip necessary and how can it be as efficient and effective as possible?  Is there an alternative to being their physically? Employees should look attending meetings via video call or conference call. 

We have hosted numerous ‘Smarter working’ workshops with customers and our own travellers, as well as steering groups with suppliers so we can enhance the overall traveller experience and continue to improve traveller wellbeing. If you are interested in finding out more about Smarter working and want to speak to our wellbeing experts, Matthew will be on our stand (B140) at various times throughout the show. If you want to book a specific appointment, please contact Matthew.Holman@capita.com

This blog was posted by Matthew Holman, Head of Traveller Wellbeing at Capita Travel and Events, who are exhibiting on stand B140 at the Business Travel Show over 26 – 27 February. Register for a FREE visitor pass now www.businesstravelshow.com

*GUEST BLOG* 8 Mobile Trends You Must Know About For 2020

The only thing faster than the rate at which the months fly by is the pace of change in technology. Each year travel companies are adopting more advanced technological solutions to try and eke out some competitive gains.

It’s encouraging to see the travel industry being early adopters of initiatives like voice search and artificial intelligence technologies. Though their application is still in its infancy it will be exciting watching these initiatives evolve.

In this blog, we showcase our Mobile Travel Trends for 2020. I’ve compiled a summary of each trend from our eight experts. You can download the full report here.

1.        Super Apps

Did you ever reach for your smartphone to search, compare and book or buy something? Wouldn’t it be so much easier if you could perform all these tasks in one place?

This may be a relatively new concept to consumers in the west, but Asian mobile users have become accustomed to using a super app to manage lots of different types of tasks. Our own Niall Minihan, Senior Commercial Manager at Travelport, gave us the low down.

WeChat is the origin of the species and has evolved into a quasi-operating system. It pioneered the use of mini-programs (millions of them within the WeChat app). For many Chinese users, WeChat is the internet with 1 billion active users logging on every month.

For travel brands, delivering a frictionless experience from the beginning to the end of the traveler’s journey has always been the holy grail. The super app may just be the solution.

To get Niall’s full take on the impact of super apps, download the full Mobile Travel Trends 2020 report.

2.        View from the big TMCs: BCD Travel

Following on from our super app trend we looked around the industry to see if companies were looking to streamline the digital experience for travelers. We spoke to a leader in the TMC space, Will Pinnell, Vice President, Digital & Product Strategy, from BCD Travel. Will gave us some insights into BCD's strategy for 2020, specifically looking at how to deliver a frictionless experience for travelers.

To read more from Will on BCD Travel’s digital strategy, download the full Mobile Travel Trends 2020 report.

3.        The rise of the machine(s)

Spotify, Amazon, and YouTube use machine learning to pick and serve content that we are most likely to engage with. A corporate travel booking solution combined with machine learning could achieve the same engaging results. Mike Wake, VP of Technology at Travelport provides some great examples of how this trend will develop in 2020.

To get the full story on the machine learning trend, download the full Mobile Travel Trends 2020 report.

4.        Business travel ROI – The data revolution

A simple booking process with a single user will generate a vast amount of data from at least 10 different data sources. Most companies are failing to leverage these data points to improve traveler experiences. Sijia Li, Senior Data Analyst at Travelport, explores how data is going to help develop the travel industry in 2020.

One trend for travel brands in 2020 will be to switch from traditional statistic-based reporting solutions to more advanced analytics solutions that can process all forms of data. The benefits of doing this include:

·        Personalization: Big data can help travel brands understand what an individual traveler wants.

·        Predictive: Using data collected from the traveler's history to display preferred content.

·        Spend: Using the data can change the way the organization sees travel, from an unmanageable cost to a tracked KPI.

·        Sustainable data lake: New travel data lake architecture should take a more sustainable approach, led by business requirements that the technology is then built to follow.

5.        Now we’re talking business

For a time, the travel industry would jealously eye some latest development in consumer tech and hope for the day that a similar feature would be available to travelers. Glenville Morris, Product Director – Digital Insights at Travelport, believes airport mapping, augmented reality bag scanning, and live chat are shining examples of just how quickly these once ‘consumer only’ mobile experiences are flowing into the business traveler apps. It’s this rapid absorption that is seeing even infant technologies like voice move into the corporate space in a matter of months now, not years.

6.        Reimagining the business travel experience

Business travellers need a consumer-like experience. There is increasing value in agencies thinking more like retail giants such as Amazon, known for their exceptional user experience. Julie O’Sullivan, Head of Digital – Business Travel at Travelport, believes 2020 will be the year we reimagine the digital traveler experience.

Today’s travellers want an experience that is as easy and engaging as the best retailers in the world. End-to-end traveller self-service functionality is now the ‘north star’ of the biggest travel brands. Because we live in a mobile, ‘always-on’ culture, the ability to self-serve is what travellers want and expect. At the same time, we must recognize that there are times when the traveller will need to reach out to a human agent and it’s about providing the ability to do that in one tap.

To read Julie’s full description of how BCD reimagined the digital traveller experience, download the full Mobile Travel Trends 2020 report.

7.        The fourth industrial revolution

Every few decades we can look back and pinpoint a step change that moved us from one era to the next. Today, as we transform into the digital era Sharon Doyle, Global VP Product Management at Travelport, reflects on the changes the travel industry has made and looks forward to the next era.

We are already seeing companies offer ways of discovering and experiencing travel through virtual and augmented reality. With the emergence of 5G, travel brands will be able to create more immersive digital experiences. Furthermore, blockchain is likely to redefine the nature of the business itself. This will see contracts and payments become digitally secured which reduces much of the manual processing of travel transactions.

Read the full article from Sharon on the digital era for travel in the full Mobile Travel Trends 2020 report.

8.        Is your TMC ready for Gen Z

Gen Z (18-24-year old’s) were born into a digital world and when it comes to connected experiences, this generation has high expectations. Travel brands who think that having a sizeable social following and a mobile app prepares them for Gen Z… need to think again. Aisling White, Senior Marketing Manager at Travelport, explains how this generation of travellers are about to change the game once more for what innovation means in business travel. 

One aspect of Gen Z being so reliant on digital is their need to communicate in real-time, in the now. Real-time alerts can be made easier with the help of automation by anticipatory and predictive artificial intelligence programs. As these programs become smarter, automation will be enabled even earlier in the booking process meaning everything will be done for the Gen Z traveller via predictive analytics, rich personas, preferences, and anticipatory AI. 

Download the full Mobile Travel Trends 2020 report now for all the analysis and research data. Travelport are exhibiting at this year's Business Travel Show, register for FREE and visit the team on stand B1400 www.businesstravelshow.com