Back in 2010, a BCD Travel white paper proclaimed online
booking adoption in Asia/Pacific corporate travel programs had reached the
"tipping point." The white paper cited an Association of Corporate
Travel Executives survey of about 100 corporate travel managers in the region,
in which just under half had an online booking tool in at least one of their
markets.
Seven years later, online booking adoption still lags in the
region due to content issues and corporate culture, though a market-by-market
view paints a rosier picture, travel industry professionals said at ACTE's August
conference in Tokyo. Charles Wong, Egencia director of supplier relations for
the region, said online adoption, at 30 to 40 percent, was low compared with
other world regions.
"Australia is a mature market in terms of online,"
he said. "In the [rest of the region], we are seeing travel arrangers used
to making bookings. Another key factor is complicated, multi-segment
itineraries. And changes are frequent, which disrupts online tools."
Still, some buyers have made great strides in the region.
Bloomberg Asia/Pacific travel manager Andy Winchester said his company has
implemented an online booking tool in five major countries there since 2013 and
reports an 85 percent adoption rate among them. Unlike other companies in the
region, Bloomberg does not have travel arrangers, and bookings are largely
self-service. Saving administration time has driven adoption. "At the
onset, the business case around the online booking tool was not just focused on
the cost-saving element," Winchester said. "It was clear [that] by
moving online, we can save in travel costs, but it was also about how to get
people to use it."
Matt Holmes, travel and events category manager for public
services provider Serco's Asia/Pacific operations, also introduced online
booking last year. About 60 percent of Serco's travel in the region goes
through travel arrangers, so the process has included getting not just
travelers but also arrangers to use the tools. As with Bloomberg, time saving
was a driver; the company showed prospective users that a simple point-to-point
booking took a little over six minutes online but about 23 minutes offline,
Holmes said. "When we worked out our company average salary and worked it
down to a per-minute basis, we saved ourselves just under $100,000 last
year," he said.
For both Serco and Bloomberg, Australia proved to be the
lowest-hanging fruit in the Asia/Pacific. Winchester said it was the easiest
rollout for Bloomberg, and Holmes used the market to see what worked. Serco will
expand the tool to New Zealand and Hong Kong, followed by India.
India has proven the most difficult region for Bloomberg, in
part because the company does not yet have a solution for booking a car there,
Winchester said. In Japan, lack of content also is a challenge, particularly as
some domestic flights and rail content are not available for online booking, he
said.
China remains the one market in which Bloomberg has not
introduced an online booking tool, he said. "Our [travel management
company] does have an online booking solution, but locally, there's so much
flight disruption in China and support needed post the ticket being issued,
we've held off at the moment. Volumes are fairly low in China, so there's not
so much of a demand."
Both
Winchester and Holmes said they have set up internal processes to boost
adoption. While Bloomberg has no hard mandate for online adoption, its offline
booking system does remind travelers about the online option when booking simple
point-to-point travel. Serco, meanwhile, has taken more of a "stick"
approach when it comes to booking hotels. "Anything booked through the
travel team is paid for centrally," Holmes said. "Anything else is
paid on the traveler's personal credit card, which they submit through expenses
and which goes through a rigorous audit."