“You still have all the use cases you had for travel prior
to the pandemic,” said EAB VP of business solutions Steven Mandelbaum. “But
bringing internal employees together is going to be a lot more important than
it was before.”
Festive Road’s Aurelie Krau agreed. “You may need to get
teams together five or six time a year. Maybe there will be one big offsite
meeting per year—and maybe that means you are going to source your programs
differently than before. This is one of the top priorities when we talk to
travel managers about what changes in the new remote work environment.”
And Mandelbaum sees it changing the needs of travel
management, particularly in one category.
“If I was to bet on one segment right now, it would be
hotel,” added Mandelbaum. “I think we’ll see a renaissance for hotels,” if they
can provide the right kind of meeting spaces and technologies. “Convention and
conference travel will be up as well, he predicted. “In a world where people
don’t do so many one-on-one visits, conventions, meetings and conferences will
be a very efficient way to see a lot of people.”
Home Away from the Home Office
Hotels got creative during the pandemic, offering rooms as
‘away day’ alternatives for workers who may have been languishing in the four
walls of makeshift home offices. But even as home offices morph into more
permanent features, hotels continue the drive to provide an opportunity for
workers to have a change of scenery.
Even prior to the pandemic, Accor was on the path toward
co-working spaces, rolling out a co-working space strategy in 2017 and
rebranding it to WoJo in 2019 before travel cratered. The idea, according to
the company, was to bring non-travelers into the hospitality space and provide
more opportunities for the local community to benefit from the hospitality
brand. Unlike the pandemic trend to set workers up in private rooms, the WoJo
strategy is to create community spaces at dedicated WoJo spaces as well as
smaller meeting rooms, pods and open collaboration spaces within the network of
hotels themselves. At last count, WoJo had 14 dedicated sites and was rolling
out smaller in-hotel locations throughout Europe. Some independent brands in
Europe, like Zoku and Schani, have invested in similar concepts on a smaller
scale.
The strategy is similar to WeWork, which revived during the
pandemic after a precipitous downturn in 2019, Regus or the meetings-oriented
cousins Convene or ETC Venues, which also offer on-demand workspaces as part of
their core offering. Commercial real estate company CBRE in an October study
said 43 percent of recently surveyed clients would expand their use of flexible
workspace options in the future.
According to the report, flex space providers are getting
more flexible, and that’s expanding their appeal for remote workers and employers
who want “sometimes” services.
“Operators are offering on-demand and desk-pass services, which allow
people to use their services whenever needed. These services are providing
companies more flexibility in establishing remote work sites for employees who
want additional options beyond the central office.”
Use What You Have, Source What You Don’t
Companies are reconsidering their own office spaces as they
look at the world of work differently. Travel managers are getting the message
that in a hybrid work environment, there will be plenty of open spaces
available to remote workers traveling into the headquarters location.
At the BTN Group’s innovate conference in New York last
month, buyers in the audience consistently asked meeting technology vendors if
corporate working spaces could be included in booking platforms. The answer—for
both companies—was either ‘yes’ or ‘that’s on our roadmap’.
The trend, said Krau, could lead travel managers to a new
sourcing strategy—establishing co-working privileges with preferred partner
hotels and meeting venues that offer them, and potentially getting those spaces
as well as their internal corporate spaces all into their online booking tools.
It’s a new world out there. Are you ready?