Net Recasts Corporate Travel
<H1> Net Recasts Corporate Travel</H1><B>I</B>magine a business world where inter- and outer-office networking, communication and information dissemination is conducted predominantly via computer networks, instantly, via the Internet and intranets; where employees are reliant on the Internet within their work environment, as well as during their leisure time, for news, business intelligence, entertainment and consumer purchasing; where commercial and social interaction is facilitated by an immensely adaptable, entertaining and easy-to-use medium-the Internet-by everyone and everybody. Is this picture still a futurist's vision? In fact, it's starting to look like a fine description of the way things are today.
As with most industries facing the growth and widespread use of the Internet as an important and powerful business tool, corporate travel managers are adapting to the Net's maturity in leaps and bounds. They are not only validating the potential of this much-hyped medium, but pushing it forward to new heights and changing the landscape of travel management technology and commerce forever. Last year's predictions have shown true: The desktop computer is no longer isolated from the network, and this year's software has the inevitable "plug-in" to interface with other applications used specifically for networking. Few business travelers are not wired in some way, and we use e-mail more willingly and with more assurance than the fax machine for important communications and document delivery.
To travel managers, this represents an incredible opportunity. Most integrated T&E management packages are too cumbersome to be completely useful and cost effective. Specifically, self-booking tools that are too similar to CRSs in terms of usability are difficult to distribute and impossible to integrate with other activities. In their place, non-distributed Internet-based solutions are taking over.
Accessible with little more than a laptop, an Internet or intranet connection and a Web browser, these products offer managers and travelers a wealth of functionality and flexibility in a computing environment that has already gained widespread acceptance and usage, without the closed circuit and high cost that accompanies distributed systems. Companywide distribution of travel policies can be facilitated via the corporate intranet with ease, while implementation and tracking will occur with reservations filters and electronic queueing.
Travelers find Internet-based systems easy to use, partly because they are already using them, but also because the Web itself is relatively simple and interesting. A traveler using one computer can monitor weather conditions in Washington, D.C., send a business proposal by e-mail to a client in New York and quickly pull up a preferred-carrier flight schedule for Dulles-and book it at a negotiated rate. The same user can check negotiated rates for a car rental and scan availability for hotels up and down the East Coast, and be back in time to finish work on that Power Point presentation due Friday.
What does all this mean for the future of business travel itself? Not only will travel management become more simplified, but the economic landscape is sure to change as well.
Looking ahead, new forms of contract negotiation and more effective travel arranging, based on the savings that these systems create, will become the norm in an industry that until now was limited to promising these changes.
<I>Joe Witherspoon is manager of marketing and planning for Internet Travel Network, Palo Alto, Calif.