It's not often big companies provide a peek of tech stuff they're working on so a recent Carlson Wagonlit Travel session was refreshing.
Although CWT's marketing technology director William El Kaim stressed the 'proof of concept' nature of the projects, given current tech developments in the corporate world, it's not hard to see some of these becoming reality.
First up was a concept dubbed CWT door-to-door. It's worth remembering here that CWT is already partnering with KDS on the latter's Neo initiative.
During his presentation, part of the TTI/WTM Innovation Summit, El Kaim talked about servicing the 'last mile' of travel with customers being able to click on preferred hotels and see their transport options and in the next phases of the project, book the elements.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, CWT is working with Rome2Rio on several 'innovation pilots' and will also continue to develop its commercial partnership with KDS.
Ongoing projects with WorldMate, acquired by CWT a year ago, extending its services to the CWT To Go mobile application as well as piloting new services are also part of the mix.
"Mobile is the second brain. Because more and more people are booking outside corporate channels what we're beginning to do is let them send an email with details and we will aggregate that into one place for increased visibility into traveller behaviour."
Other ways the company is betting will improve the journey for travellers include virtual assistants - see Tnooz article on the Carla mobile initiative.
The company is also working on a CWT Kiosk concept (both online and physical concept) which enables travellers to discuss options with a consultant during the journey using video-conferencing and screen-sharing technology.
The aim of this would be to bridge gaps between online and offline as well as help travellers who don't travel - El Kaim says one third only travel once a year but account for 10% of overall travel spend.
Another concept is FareTracker. The company announced a deal with Yapta last week, alerting US clients if a booked fare can be re-booked at a lower price.
However, a further concept in pilot - predictive fare modelling, would work in real-time and before a booking is ticketed to help customers get greater visibility on fares by comparing with other options and routes or with other clients on the same route.
Underpinning much of the work is a big data platform called CWT trip reconstruction which aims to draw information together from multiple sources to help the company move away from a transaction oriented service to more real-time recommendations.
Algorithms within the platform help CWT draw conclusions on traveller behaviour by country or company or other trends.
All of this leads to the idea of CWT becoming more of a 'big mother' than a big brother.
When it comes to what might see the light of day, it's down to a number of steps:
- 'Ideation' - looking at client issues, selecting ideas and assessing the amount if investment required
- Pilot - build the technology and test it and based on results evaluate the cost to bring it to market
- Define a business plan and create a committee consisting of different people within the organisation who will see the product brought to life.