American Express Global Business Travel has launched, among
other tech upgrades that benefit from its large collection of data, a
benchmarking tool for buyers that enables comparisons against different peer
groups and that considers traveler well-being. The mega travel management
company labeled the wave of updates as the latest products of a technology
investment program running since 2015, shortly after investment firm Certares injected
$900 million into GBT, which spun off from American Express as a
50/50 joint venture.
Redefining A
Company's Peer Group for Travel Program Benchmarking ...
Thanks to the vast amount of traveler information and
bookings it collects—Travel Weekly's 2018 Power List ranks
GBT as the largest purely corporate travel agency, with $32.7
billion in sales in 2017—GBT's analytics capabilities have a lot of data to
work with. (Travel Weekly, like BTN, is owned by Northstar Travel Group.) GBT said
it holds more than six years of such information in its data lake. The new
benchmarking tool, Peer Travel Insights, enables travel programs to develop peer groups not only by industry—agriculture, forestry and fishing; mining; construction; manufacturing, transportation, communications, electric, gas and sanitary service; wholesale trade; retail trade; finance; insurance and real estate; services; and public administration—but also by five other characteristics:
- number of employees
- air spend
- percentage of online bookings
- point-of-sale country
- percentage of domestic economy fares
The system guides users to develop a peer group of at least five and no more than 20 companies and can tell the user his or her company's rank on 40 key performance indicators. Peer Travel Insights complements the Premier Insights data visualization tool GBT launched in 2016 and offers the following dashboards:
- Air Supplier Optimization: fare comparison by carrier and by origin and destination
- Air Online Adoption
- Air Advance Purchase
- Air Class of Service
- Air Same Day Trips
- Hotel Supplier Optimization
- Hotel Tier Usage
- Car Supplier Optimization
- Car Class of Service
- Traveler Well-Being
... Plus Traveler Well-Being Benchmarking
Peer Travel Insights
also adds a modern-day layer to travel program benchmarking with the last in that list: traveler
well-being. For that category, GBT considers positive factors like use of nonstop flights and, on
international trips, use of business class seats, plus friction factors like use of red-eye flights
and time spent away from home. All form a traveler well-being score for each
company, and the Traveler Well-Being dashboard benchmarks that against peers, as well.
The idea is to inform travel managers who may want to change their travel
policies. Chief technology officer David Thompson said the dashboard allows travel managers "to better understand the relationship between cost containment, travel policy and employee productivity."
Booking Recommendations Coming to North America ...
Having acquired KDS in October 2016, GBT already uses artificial intelligence to analyze
travelers' previous travel behavior, the patterns of similar travelers and company
policy to develop booking suggestions in the KDS Neo booking tool. "Neo's smart search and
booking engine can deliver a complete itinerary in seconds, combining air/rail,
accommodations and ground transport in an intuitive, interactive, web and
mobile interface," according to GBT. The Neo recommendation engine is available to GBT
customers in EMEA and will launch in May for clients in North America.
... Now with a Hotel
Attachment Solution
Now, GBT has added a hotel attachment feature to solve for
travelers who book flights first but not the hotel portions of their trips. Trip
Recommender, which is online booking tool agnostic but powered by the same AI
in Neo, emails those travelers with hotel suggestions—again based on policy,
traveler history and the patterns of similar travelers—and a click-to-book option.
Mobile
App Upgrades
GBT has added real-time messaging with live
agents globally, available via app and web. The app also now
includes click-to-call; face or fingerprint login with compatible iOS and
Android devices; and one-click booking from the booking recommendation engine. Client-based
hotel reviews, a flight-boarding-countdown timer and embedded corporate
messaging additionally are on the way this year. A spokesperson said GBT will
explain the embedded corporate messaging in detail when the product comes out.
In-House Hotel Reshop Solution
GBT has launched a proprietary Hotel Re-shop Expert to reshop
booked hotel rates and recommend cheaper rates for hotels with similar amenities
and the same room type. It's available in the U.S., U.K. and Canada and will be
available in "key proprietary GBT countries" like Australia, Mexico,
France and Germany this year. "TMCs now need their own technology that helps companies manage the
entire travel ecosystem," said Evan Konwiser, GBT VP of product strategy and marketing. "Some may opt for more proprietary tools and others may
look for third parties." However, Yapta still powers GBT's Air Re-shop
Expert.
Core
Technology Platform
All the new data capabilities stem from GBT's
new Core Technology Platform, a three-legged stool: a Global Trip Record across
agent, online and mobile traveler touches; a single master traveler-managed
profile called Connect Profile; and a Supply Management Platform to assemble
rich inventory and content from all channels, including global distribution
systems, aggregators, online travel agencies and direct connections. Read
more about GBT's tech platform in BTN sister publication The Beat (subscription
required).
Updated at 12:15 p.m. Eastern on March 8, 2019, to add detail on Peer Travel Insights' peer group methodology.