The travel managers over at Carlson Wagonlit Travel compile an annual report analyzing the priorities within the TMC world. Do their priorities reflect yours?
The report is an analysis of 1,113 responses from individuals representing 515 organizations in 56 countries.
Data security is a top priority
The ability to successful protect data was the top concern of the queried travel managers, as it was identified as the number one trend affecting their respective travel programs. This matched with the managers' top priority, which was using data to model behavior to build predictive models.
In order to successful deliver on this use of data, the travel managers must ensure complete security of this data.
Millennials and managed travel
Leveraging data into better travel policy compliance was also of interest to the surveyed travel managers. Yet they were also skeptical of any large impact of Millennials' travel behavior on their programs.
Somehow gamification and social media continue to be talked about as tools to promote policy and compliance. Both Carlson Wagonlit and American Express launched elements of gamification back at GBTA in 2013, and yet it seems that travel managers are still not jumping on board.
Either these sorts of compliance tools are not working well, or travel managers are having a hard time selling it to their managed groups. Either way, apply a healthy skepticism to report's admonishment that 95% of travel managers are missing out on using gamification.
Determining return on investment
One useful piece of data was the determination of whether a trip was worth the expense to the company. By looking at how often trips were approved, the data shows the sweet spot as far as ensuring ROI for the human and financial resources expended.
Not only does it cost money to travel, but you lose valuable productivity on travel days and during times away from the usual office routines. The most unsuccessful trips were proven to be the least-planned trips that had few meetings of short durations.
Basically, the trips with the most ROI were planned at least 2 weeks in advance, and included 6 or more meetings over at least 2 days.
Sharing economy and mobile
Mobile continues to be a significant priority for respondents; the sharing economy much less so.
In fact, only one in three see the sharing economy as high impact for their travelers. Part of this is due to the unreliability as far as quality on Airbnb — business travelers require consistency of product so that there are few surprises on the road. The lack of consistent brand standards is the primary impediment to delivering more business traveler throughput on sharing economy platforms like Airbnb.
However, Uber and Lyft continue to be popular among business travelers, so perhaps there are some differences in opinion according to different sharing economy uses.
The full listing of trends and priorities in 2015 for travel managers
NB:Puzzle image courtesy Shutterstock.