Most business travel buyers haven’t seen any impact on their travel programs from AI applications but are quite interested in the technology's possibilities in a swath of functions, according to a new Global Business Travel Association survey, released Tuesday.
A plurality of buyer respondents in the wide-ranging survey also weren't sure if their travel management company used AI tools or workflows to service their travelers.
The online survey of 269 travel buyers in North America and Europe, which was conducted March 10-23 in partnership with Spotnana, Marriott International and Direct Travel, also touched on respondents' views on TMC service, globalization and hotel retailing trends.
Most respondents, however curious they may be about AI, said the technology's effect on their programs thus far was minor. When asked to gauge that impact on an ascending scale of one to five, 29 percent chose one—"no impact"—and another 29 percent chose two. (About 2 percent chose five: "dramatically improved our program.")
The results echo BTN's recent AI in Business Travel Research & Report, in which 26 percent of 293 buyers surveyed in January and February said their organizations weren't using AI in travel management at all, and another 38 percent said they were only exploring or testing AI tools.
Still, GBTA respondents demonstrated high interest in a variety of potential AI use cases, including 93 percent who said they were interested in AI-driven report creation, 92 percent who were interested in predictive analytics for travel spend forecasting and 89 percent for automated trip disruption management and rebooking.
Respondents were less clear about their TMCs' use of AI. Thirty-one percent said their TMC currently uses AI to service their travelers and another 31 percent said their TMC did not, but the balance–38 percent—said they didn't know.
"Travel managers should engage their TMC to understand how it is using AI today—and what is on the roadmap for the future," according to a report GBTA released with the survey. "They can address concerns—but also work to proactively understand how they need to adapt their program to an AI world."
Retailing Reflections
Meanwhile, respondents weren't overwhelmingly enthusiastic at the prospect of new models of hotel retailing, but 51 percent said the ability to book guest rooms based on attributes like the site of the room's floor, its view and its proximity to the elevator would improve the self-service hotel booking experience.
About 46 percent said that experience would be improved by the ability of split-payment functionality, in which business travelers could use their corporate card to pay for standard hotel expenses and a personal card for out-of-policy amenities like spa use or late checkout. Respondents on average estimated that a bit less than one-third of their organization's travelers would be interested in such a policy.
Global Challenges
About 40 percent of respondents said managing a global program was a "moderate" challenge, and another 21 percent said it was a "major" one. Among these respondents, 63 percent cited a lack of consolidated reporting across regions as a key factor in complicating such management, tops among the options provided in the survey.
About 48 percent of respondents said they pull travel data from at least six separate data sources in their global programs; only 12 percent indicated they "have a consolidated view of the travel program from a single data source."
"Data fragmentation continues to limit visibility and performance optimization," according to GBTA.
Of the 269 respondents, 187 completed the full survey, according to GBTA, 118 of whom were in North America and 69 in Europe.