Business travelers may love their Blackberrys and iPhones and the crush of available mobile apps, but only a quarter of travel managers believe travel apps are effective for their businesses.
That's one of the conclusions of a Rearden Commerce survey conducted at the Global Business Travel Association convention in Denver Aug. 21-24.
Some 63% of travel managers surveyed were hopeful that mobile technology could help their organizations satisfy their managed travel wish lists, with improving compliance and reducing travel spend prime goals, but they indicated their companies had not fully rolled out mobile platforms.
And just 25% of travel managers participating in the Rearden survey said smartphones and apps were actually improving their travel programs.
Compliance with a company's travel policy, of course, is the egg that travel managers are constantly trying to crack and two-thirds of survey respondents said their employees are compliant less than half the time.
"The most effective apps will integrate with a company's managed travel platform and make compliance with travel policies a priority along with serving the needs of the traveler," says Tony D'Astolfo, Rearden's senior vice president of travel services.
In other words, most travel apps are leisure-travel oriented and aren't a tool in travel managers' compliance toolkit.
Sixty percent of the travel managers in the survey indicated that part of the compliance problem is that it takes a great amount of time to manage travel online or via mobile devices.
"One of the biggest frustrations: the online search results almost never match their employees' individual preferences -- a major hurdle when it comes to driving employee adoption," Rearden says.
It sounds like there is an ongoing huge business opportunity out there for mobile developers in business travel.