It feels like a seminal moment for corporate online booking
tools. While their penetration into managed travel programs has never been
deeper, the model of a walled-off, corporate-sanctioned or -required system
increasingly is under attack, especially as some systems are perceived as stale
and slow to adapt, especially when compared with seemingly endless
business-to-consumer innovation.
If corporate OBTs are to be an integral component of managed
travel in 2020, many believe they must morph further into consumer-like tools,
provide travelers more choice, continue to meet corporate needs and of course
be fully functional in whichever channel a user prefers.
Sabre Travel Network president Greg Webb suggests the
negative perception of corporate OBTs stems from what he termed a "schizophrenic"
reality. "You are serving a number of different masters," he said,
pointing to end-user travelers, corporate travel managers and agencies that
provide support. "Some of the things that cause consumers to think
corporate booking tools don't keep up have a lot more to do with the underlying
policy that goes loaded into them than the capability."
He agreed that there will be further convergence of the
functions and feel of leisure and corporate tools, and suggested corporate ones
would succeed in handling ancillary sales and merchandizing. "The question
is, will corporations eventually give up the idea of running a managed travel
program?" he asked. "That seems unlikely."
Correspondingly, more than six in 10 BTN survey respondents expect online booking tools to become more
relevant to travel management by 2020.
But that's certainly not a consensus among industry players
and observers. The role of a designated booking channel as a foundational
element of managed travel programs may evaporate by the beginning of the next
decade. "With the combination of no innovation on the corporate booking
tool side, and the growth of ancillaries and dynamic offers and personalization
that the corporate booking tool can't facilitate, the corporate travel manager
is going to have a very difficult time forcing their travelers to book through
their preferred channel," said industry veteran Ellen Keszler. "The
potential is there for all the offers to be available through corporate tools,
but lots of investment is required."
Perhaps sooner than later, providers of such tools will need
to invest and innovate to regain any momentum within managed travel.
If they adapt, how? Obviously by becoming ubiquitous at all
traveler touchpoints, which very well could include wearable computing (think
of what Google Glass may spawn), and by emulating the consumer space.
Some also expect corporate tools to become aggregators by
providing not only the most preferred options from a travel department's
perspective but also many others that travel managers can tolerate (if not
encourage). Some corporate tools already incorporate content furnished by
direct connections with suppliers, in addition to content provided via GDSs. A
Kayak-type tool for corporate programs may meet lots of constituents' needs and
may be a viable option well before 2020.
For many, injecting fresh blood into the corporate booking
tool market is a necessary development to present more choices and meet the
demands of increasingly tech-savvy travelers. Travel and Transport president
and CEO Bill Tech, like others, wonders when (or if) some tech companies not
directly in the travel space may develop meaningful competition against the
very small handful of tools available. "Right now there are four or five
out there," he said. "That is not enough."
This report
originally appeared in the Nov. 11, 2013, edition of Business Travel News.