About half of
business travelers feel restricted by their travel policies, according to a
survey by Travelport. In that statistic, Travelport general manager and VP of
U.S. sales Erika Moore sees an opportunity for travel management companies and
corporate travel managers to manage a bit more, especially when it comes to
lightly managed travelers. Moore said travelers, both business and leisure,
want to personalize their trips, and corporate booking tools and add-on
technologies now allow travel managers and TMCs to offer more guidance—say, on
pricing—and more flexibility for travelers researching and booking business
trips. The policy that a corporate travel manager writes into the corporate
booking tool, for example, could remain strict about the type of hotel a
traveler can use but be flexible about the return date at the end of a trip.
That would allow the traveler freedom to tack on leisure travel while a
gamification tool could capture the savings if the traveler instead opted to
return on a cheaper flight immediately after business is done. Newer technology
also allows companies to tailor the policies in booking tools to particular
groups, such as road warriors, Moore said.
Below are more results from Travelport’s survey, conducted from Aug. 4
to 16, 2017, of about 1,000 U.S. residents who traveled at least once for
business in the previous year. Note that respondents answered the questions with
business and leisure travel in mind at the same time. However, the information
revealed applies to corporate travel, considering today’s focus on traveler
satisfaction.
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