As corporate travel buyers assess mobile strategy, they have
rightly recognized smartphones and tablets as the primary touch points. Yet,
the very notion of mobile is broadening to include watches, bracelets, glasses
and other devices that comprise the emerging category of wearables. Doubts
abound on adoption, potential and utility—what can a watch do that a phone
can’t?—but early boosters from the travel segment see a category worthy of
consideration, a new way to deliver travel services and even a powerful new
touch point to communicate contextual messages to managed travelers.
One in five U.S. adults already uses a wearable device,
according to a Forrester Research survey of 952 consumers that was released in
September. Yet, among the adopters, the most widely used were the Fitbit (36
percent) and Nike’s FuelBand (16 percent)—two wrist-worn devices squarely in
the health and fitness realm. While a Fitbit can monitor your heart rate, it
won’t alert you to a gate change for your next flight or help you request an
Uber.
“Wearables will take off first on the health side,” said
Travel Tech Consulting president Norm Rose. “Travel as an industry itself is
not going to drive the adoption of wearables. That’s despite the fact that the
major airlines, the itinerary aggregators and hoteliers have all created Apple
Watch apps and are trying to be ahead of the curve.”
While there are other notable wearable technologies worthy
of consideration—Samsung Galaxy Gear, for example—many, including Rose, view
the Apple Watch as a bellwether, considering Apple’s history for defining, if
not inventing, consumer technology categories.
According to the Forrester survey, 16 percent of wearables
adopters use the Apple Watch. While its arrival in April generated plenty of
buzz, consumer adoption thus far has not met the lofty expectations. “The Apple
Watch, which we were anticipating would be a smash, was pretty slow as far as
adoption,” said Rose.
Indeed, in August, UBS equity analysts found that consumer
interest in the Apple Watch, based on consumer Web searches, was “lower than
for earlier Apple products, as well as many consumer electronic launches.”
Of course, as with many emerging technologies, smartwatches
may evolve into something better, more pervasive and cheaper.
“Wearables come in various shapes and forms,” Sabre
Hospitality Solutions general manager Cassandra Rollins said, a Google Glass
set in hand, during the Global Business Travel Association conference in
Orlando this summer. Google ultimately abandoned Google Glass, an early and
buzzed-about wearable experiment, but Rollins said, “Wearables, whether it’s
glass or another form, will continue to evolve and become more affordable.
[Google Glass] came out at $1,500, which was incredible, and the battery life
was terrible. But wearables are here to stay.”
Travel suppliers have awoken to the promise of smartwatches.
American Airlines has enabled baggage claim and gate change notifications, as
well as boarding passes, on the Apple Watch. Uber users can request a ride and
receive car-arrival notifications on Apple Watch. Smartwatch-wearing Starwood
Hotels & Resorts guests can unlock hotel room doors, at least at some
properties, and check-in and review reservation details. Hotel Tonight lets
wearable wearers book last-minute hotels.
“Airlines and the other sectors have been out of the gate
with the watch really fast,” said Rose. “They’re trying to keep ahead of the
curve, but the curve hasn’t even started to climb enough.”
A few tech products used in the corporate realm also have
positioned their wares for watches. Sabre’s TripCase and Concur’s TripIt
itinerary management tools support various smartwatch platforms, enabling
travelers to see upcoming trip information and receive notifications.
“If we look at innovative technologies broadly, we have an
obligation to explore them and make sure that we’re ready for them as they come
along,” Concur senior vice president of global product and platform strategy
Darren Koch said. “So for things like Apple Watch and Samsung Gear, we’ve done
product releases on TripIt because they’re more end-user-facing tools for the
traveler. We’ll continue to use brands like TripIt and ExpenseIt to explore emerging
technologies, as well as other groups within Concur. Some of those things will
work; some of them won’t. Some of them will get wide adoption, and some won’t.”
Though the company is tinkering, it’s clear Concur isn’t
chasing wearables with the same vigor as it did smartphones. Koch noted that
the Apple Watch is “not something to bet against, but when you think about the
number of smartphones out there and the number of watches, it’s hard to justify
huge investment in that platform as it stands now.”
Travel management companies may have a reputation for being
slow to respond to consumer technology trends, but at least one has released a
smartwatch companion app to its mobile arsenal. “We’re spending a lot of time
and money on the mobile side,” said Travel and Transport COO Tim Fleming. “We
continue to see that as the future of a lot of technology. So much of the
technology that’s been developed over the years in the industry has been built
around the management of the program itself: tools and solutions for the travel
manager, for procurement. We’re spending a lot of time now continuing in that
area but really trying to get more in the hands of the traveler.”
Travel and Transport’s Apple Watch capabilities include
displaying upcoming trip details. The company also touts some air and hotel
check-in capabilities. Yet, the functionality could go further to allow
communication between travel manager and traveler. “We see it more than just
being your boarding pass or your flight itinerary,” said Fleming. “We’re envisioning
things where you go to check into a hotel and the traveler gets a message on
the watch that says, ‘Remember that you have free Wi-Fi and free breakfast at
this hotel.’”
Travel and Transport president and CEO Kevin O’Malley
interjected, “Or, ‘Don’t forget to fill up your car before you return it so
that you can save your company money.’”
Fleming continued, “Those kind of things that are pertinent
to where that person is, from a location or timing standpoint—we think there’s
some good things like that that are coming.”
TMCs and buyers may even have an audience, as many early
wearables adopters also happen to travel for business. According to BTN’s
Mobile Migration survey of 300 travelers, 20 percent own a smartwatch. Sure,
that pales in comparison with the 98 percent carrying a smartphone and the 77
percent wielding a tablet, but it’s early.
A separate study published in April by Phocuswright (which,
like BTN, is owned by Northstar Travel Media) showed business travelers
adopting wearables at a faster pace than general consumers were. According to
Phocuswright’s online survey of 975 qualified respondents, fielded late last year,
15 percent had a wearable device versus 9 percent of overall consumers. The Phocuswright
survey showed that 66 percent planned to acquire a wearable device “in the next
few years.”
One adopter is The Advisory Board Co.’s Steven Mandelbaum.
“It works,” he said, even if some supporting infrastructure doesn’t. “It’s a
little hard to put your arm on the TSA scanner, and certain airlines have bar
code scanners where your arm just doesn’t fit in it. But, yeah, I can see it
being very useful.”
On the other hand—or wrist—there are plenty of travelers
who, according to Phocuswright, “are reluctant to add another device to their
lives.” Of the research group’s survey respondents, 35 percent weren’t
interested in adopting wearables anytime soon. “Business travelers pack light,
so any new device has to provide serious value,” wrote Phocuswright. “Given
that the majority of business travelers already own two or three devices,
adding a wearable and its accompanying paraphernalia like chargers and cables
to an already crowded briefcase is something many travelers will think
carefully about.”
Count Hickory Global Partners president Chris Dane in their
company. “I don’t get what I get in a wearable that I don’t have on my phone,”
he said during The BTN Group’s recent The Beat Live conference. “I don’t think
the wearables are very attractive as a piece of jewelry, if you will, so if I
have it on my phone, why do I need a wearable?”
If wearables turn out to be the next big thing, they’re not
there yet, giving travel managers some time to grapple with the potential
implications.
“It’s early enough that we’re not going to be blindsided
with a wearable explosion, as happened with the smartphone explosion in 2008,”
said Rose. “The corporate travel buying community is still trying to recover
from that. I don’t think they need to be concerned that, six months from now,
wearables are going to blow apart the way they manage travel.”
Even so, Rose encouraged managers to understand what their
travelers are using and how. “If you’re a high-tech company in Silicon Valley,
you might have more early adopters.” He indicated the biggest thing corporate
buyers should keep in mind about smartwatches: “Their role has to go beyond
delivering the tickets and the reservations through their TMC. There has to be
a better way to communicate with frequent travelers on the road.” Travel
managers don’t need to worry too much about wearables yet, he said, adding,
“What I would be concerned with is [if] they don’t have a mobile strategy at
all.”
This report originally appeared in the Oct. 26, 2015
edition of Business Travel News.