Part 2 – Corporate Travel Personalisation...And What To Do (Or Not Do) About It

In case your normal Genie isn’t available, hopefully today’s Cafe will help see your future…!

Greetings, Cafe Patrons. It’s been a fun and interesting couple of weeks since the Cafe “re-opened” with a new look and a new approach, and I think all the travel shots are starting to take effect as the dialogue is moving along fast and furious. Thanks to all the regulars and new Patrons for their participation!

As mentioned last week, based on the predictions contained within a recent Amadeus study on trends in travel over the next 10 years, there may be a significant change in the way travel products are sold and packaged, especially by airlines and perhaps to a lesser extent, hotels. The idea that an entirely new level of personalised choice and flexibility is already taking shape in some instances, as a Cafe Patron rightly commented on the fact that Air New Zealand’s new 4-tier pricing is a live example of this today.

And although I certainly didn’t mean to try and scare anyone with my thoughts last week about getting ready for these changes now rather than waiting for later, I do think that those who sit on their hands may be in a for a rough go of it if they fail to think at least a bit about what the future of corporate travel might look like.
Over the past several months your Barista has consulted with both TMC’s as well as technology companies around future direction and capabilities, and with corporate buyers about how things may evolve for them within their travel programs. As this is travel, there is no shortage of ideas, concepts and technologies all professing to help make things better. Therefore, I’ve summarised what I see are several ways in which travel buyers and suppliers can think through (and in some cases, work together) to tackle head-on the challenges and opportunities the next 10 years in travel could bring:

1. Understand The Present to Better Predict The Future: when it comes to creating a travel program which engages travellers, drives productivity, and pays off through business results, those who fully understand the culture and objectives of their company are more likely to succeed. Similarly, if you don’t know what your company’s strategies are, and don’t apply them to your thinking about how the travel program will compliment those strategies, change will be hard to manage. Is your company shrinking or growing? Are you on an acquisition spree or are you an acquisition target? How long is your company’s horizon in terms of planning – 1 year? 3 years? 10 years? By thinking ahead to understand where your company is going, and in turn what your travellers may be expected to do in terms of travel patterns, expenditure, etc. you’ll have a better chance of anticipating the impact certain trends will have on your travel program.

2. Find Yourself Some Foot Soldiers: Given the various generations that exist across any organisation today, its important that to better gauge how your travellers will react to future program changes and options you get a good cross section of them engaged now. Ask them to be guinea pigs for new technologies, products or suppliers; incentivise them to participate by giving them “preferred access” to programs or ideas that make them feel special; have them first on the list to pilot test the latest and greatest. Then, when you’re ready to take some of your ideas up the food chain to the leadership, you’ve got your “troops” on your side to back up your ideas with their feedback and evidence.

3. Start Managing Upwards Now: to the latter half of point #2, even if you have the best idea in the world, the surest way to get it shot down quickly is to ill-time your engagement with leaders or stakeholders. As in don’t wait until it’s ready to roll to let them in on it! Although it may seem premature, it’s OK to start working some ideas into your current day thinking and presentations to the organisation to start litmus testing their initial reactions and gauge your potential supporters (and detractors, for that matter.) You may even be surprised by getting a green light to move forward sooner or quicker on a future initiative than you may have thought.

4. Engage Your Suppliers – and Disengage from Those That Don’t Engage: this may seem the most obvious, but it’s also the one potentially most important. As the Amadeus report indicates, most if not all suppliers are going to be looking at all sorts of new ways to package, position and sell the value of their products. From experience, I know that most good suppliers will incorporate a future or strategy component to regular business reviews with their partners and clients, so this may be occurring today in some form or another. However, don’t just let them present to you – why not present back to them? Tell them what YOU think your company’s program will look like 2-5-10 years from now, and see how they react. And in turn, if they try to get you overly excited about a new idea because there may not be an alternative for you to consider, challenge the excitement. And if you don’t like what you’re hearing or seeing, be ready to make a move if the supplier’s strategies don’t match with your thinking.

5. Always Be Thinking in Terms of ROI: at the end of the day, travel is an expense and companies like to control expenses. Great ideas in business always need to come down to some sort of bottom line, be it revenue generation, cost reduction, future investment in growth, or a profitable combination of all these factors and then some. No matter how you look at evolving the components of your travel program in the future, the core value of travel management is maximising benefit whilst minimising cost. So even if you think that soon your travellers will be demanding seats on Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic flights (“our new sales targets are over the moon – literally – so I need to fly there tomorrow!”) if you can’t find a way to justify them financially as a preferred supplier, you’re probably better off keeping things firmly on the ground.

As with all things crystal-ball related, the above list is not all-inclusive nor does it contain all the silver bullets to address the challenges ahead. However, there’s no time like the present to start thinking, experimenting, challenging current norms, and evaluating potential future successes. After all, if you don’t think ahead, do you know who will?

So Cafe Patrons, what do you think – what other angles have I missed in the above list? Let’s hear them all!