Managing
traveler behavior via mobile apps, social media and other technology was the plat
du jour when European buyers gathered with BTN editors for the publication’s
annual roundtable at the Association of Corporate Travel Executives global
conference in Paris. Supplying the answers—and in some cases, the questions—in
this excerpt: Denmark-based global head of travel and indirect services for
Maersk, Mette Christensen; Ireland-based European travel manager for The
Coca-Cola Co., Michael Hill; United Kingdom-based global travel manager for
Willis Group Services, Deborah Short; and Italy-based Europe, the Middle East
and Africa director of travel and meetings for Johnson & Johnson, Andrea
Valvo.
All
of you manage policy compliance very effectively, but are you feeling the
pressure to allow some form of open booking?
Andrea Valvo: We are feeling the pressure. We get thousands
of questions about “Why can’t I book on the Internet for less than through our
agency?” But at this stage, the economic pressure on the business is such that
we can still have a strongly compliant policy.
Will
you be able to hold the line for the next three to five years?
Valvo:
A typical conversation I have with senior management is: Why is there so much
technology for leisure travel and so little for corporate travel? There is a
lot of effort at the moment from [travel management companies] and technology
providers to enable a different type of managed travel for the future. But
three years ago, I expected us to be in a very different situation today, so I
would not bet on us being in a very different situation three to five years
from now because history says we need to be cautious.
Mette
Christensen: It’s going to be difficult. I can see the next generation
coming. Right now, there is a very strong culture in our company of following
policy, so I can keep them at bay at the moment, but we have to come up with
another solution.
Give
us your vision of what this model would look like.
Christensen:
It’s not going to be open booking, but it has to be a more flexible way of
approaching the booking. It has to be more like the way people use mobile
today. There have to be more options. I would prefer to do it with my TMC
because then I can still control this.
Michael
Hill: The lack of mobile technology in our industry is our biggest
hurdle at the moment. I am struggling to get my TMC to confirm when I am going
to get an app for online booking.
Christensen:
We are developing our own app [and launched it in November 2015]. People are
getting app tired, so you have to make sure it’s interesting enough, and it
costs quite a lot of money to do it.
So,
if it’s expensive, why are you doing this?
Christensen:Because
what’s out there is simply not good enough. We will give it to the travel
agency afterward because they couldn’t deliver something that was good enough. Someone
has to invest.
Are
you working with a third party to build it?
Christensen: I have one of our own developers assigned to me
to do this.
What’s
going to be in the app?
Christensen: We will integrate information like: What do I
do if I lose my luggage? What if I’m afraid in a hotel in India? It’s going to
be everything from your itinerary to what’s the weather like, what is the
currency, what’s in the hotel program. We’re going to link it up to Lanyon. In Quarter
2 or 3 next year we’re going to get online booking in there. There’s going to
be security information. I want my travelers to be part of a club. I want
TripAdvisor to be in there, as well. I’ve given my travelers a credit card with
a brand on it. Now I want to give them an app with a brand on it, too.
Do
you really think you can keep up with the fast development of mobile apps?
Christensen: I want to push someone else to develop further.
I hope the TMCs develop a really hot app that I can just buy, but right now,
it’s not there and I want to give my travelers something.
What
about the rest of you?
Deborah
Short: I’ll be relying either on a TMC or on Concur. I haven’t got the
budget to develop in the short term, and I certainly wouldn’t have the budget
year on year in the long term to keep up with what’s on trend.
Christensen:
If you’re depending on Concur or someone like that, then you need to have one
enterprise resource planning system or do a hell of a lot of integration, and
we have 18 ERPs. I have to find another platform because integrating into the
ERP systems is going to kill me. It might be that it’s obsolete in one or two
years, but I’ve got to push the boundary somewhere.
How
do you justify the investment when it may soon be obsolete?
Christensen: I take it out of my own budget, and I have
development money I can use for certain stuff. I can probably sell it [to a
travel technology company], too.
Travelers
have to use other apps, too, such as for hotel check-in and mobile boarding
passes. What’s your policy about allowing that?
Short: We’re just changing our whole mobile strategy.
It was all very BlackBerry oriented and controlled. We now have a strategy of
smartphones or bring your own device, and that’s allowing us to do more. We’re
a lot more flexible in the apps that people can download.
Do
you try to control or direct in any way what apps they can use?
Short:
We haven’t quite reached that yet. You remember how in the old days, we would
stage travel fairs? What we’re looking at doing next year is having a travel
technology day. I want to get to people who don’t know how to work apps. Thousands
of people have a TripIt account, but none of them use it because they don’t
really understand it.
Valvo:
Our company recommends some apps. They have to go through checks with IT, data
privacy and so on.
Do
you participate in recommending the apps?
Valvo:
I am involved in the whole process, but, of course, there are others, as well.
Short:
Can you tell us which apps they have been supportive of?
Valvo:
One is TripCase. We launched a corporate version of it, and the other big one
was Concur Mobile.
Christensen:
We have our own app store for which apps need to get through our IT security
department.
What
exactly are you taking on when you recommend apps?
Short:
My problem is that if I recommended an app, I would end up with a million
questions.
Valvo:
I was afraid of the same thing, but it didn’t happen. But you need something
that is self-explanatory. Otherwise, you could be overrun.
Staying
within the digital world, do any of you engage with your travelers through
digital media?
Hill: We have a Salesforce Chatter account. We set it
up for many things, but it includes a business travel forum. It’s a great way
for people to ask questions, especially if they don’t know who to send them to.
The travel managers are all responsible for monitoring the account.
So
you have to be responsive to what comes in?
Hill:
Yes, but that’s your job as a travel manager anyway.
Short:
I’m in meetings most of the day. Doesn’t someone have to be there to respond to
it?
Hill:
There aren’t that many questions. It’s the same point as your fear about the
app. It doesn’t create much more work but it does create an awareness, and
everything gets stored so people can refer to previous topics of conversation.
Don’t
people tend to rant on social media? How much of the comments are negative
versus positive, and do you try to control that?
Hill: Not as much of it is bad as you might imagine. I
post information about strikes in Europe or if we have any new deals with a
hotel. I encourage preferred hotels to give us offers for weekends so that we
can help our partners to create incremental revenue. We do get feedback, and
some of it is excellent.
How
much time are you putting into moderating your forum?
Hill:
Maybe 30 minutes a week. The questions are very basic. You can fire the answer
off straight away, so honestly not a lot. There are five travel managers, and
we are all watching it. I am fanatical about answering every single question as
quickly as possible because I want the travel team to be seen as responsive.
Short:
It has to be because people are now used to having instant conversations online
with companies like Apple and Amazon.
Hill:
That’s an excellent point. The technology for chat is there, but we don’t have
it in corporate travel.
Christensen:
I want chat with our TMC on the app. The first time I suggested this, they
looked at me and said, “You are crazy.” I said, “Probably, but let’s get on
with it.” And now they are completely into it because when we get our app,
that’s going to take off like mad. We have so many transactions and emails
going into the agency that I need to find another solution for it, and chat is
going to be the way forward.
What
about your online adoption? Chat capability makes it easier to talk to the
agent?
Christensen:
My online adoption is bad anyway because we have such complicated travel, including
marine and offshore travel. In some countries like the U.S., it is 80 percent,
but overall it is around 10 percent. I’m actually trying to circumvent the
online tool. That technology is going to be lost in a few years. We’re trying
to develop an old technology.
Short:
And chat is definitely the future. It’s the easiest thing. But it’s expensive
because you need to have multiple people available to respond instantaneously. In
the U.S., we have 98 percent online adoption. Was it easy? No, it wasn’t. We
had to mandate it, and the agency isn’t allowed to take any simple bookings. I know
if we had chat, people would do just that and not book online.
What
else are you doing to engage with and motivate your travelers?
Hill: What I’ve started to do with a couple of hotels
in London where travelers have booked the Coca-Cola rate is to put a personalized
welcome message on their bed when they arrive. It shows them the rate, what’s
included in the rate and a map of how to get to our office. It’s working really
well, and I’m going to expand it. Knowing what’s in the rate is particularly
helpful. Is Wi-Fi included? Is breakfast included? This cuts those questions
out.