American Express Global Business Travel has launched a new benchmarking service to help travel managers understand if their performance is up to snuff.
Its Peer Travel Insights (PTI) tool will use GBT’s Big Data and analytics infrastructure - a repository the company says houses more than six years of data - to measure travel program performance and competitiveness.
To measure competitiveness, PTI will automatically identify companies from across industries - based on similar attributes - and group them as peers.
Amex GBT says the cross-industry benchmarking is different from a company simply comparing itself to other industry competitors.
Subscribe to our newsletter below
The tool can then anonymously rank individual companies within their peer group from best in class.
PTI will also, for the first time, measure intangible traveler well-being metrics to assess the impact business travel has on employees and benchmark results across peer companies.
The well-being dashboard measures positive KPIs, such as the use of nonstop flights and access to business class seats on international flights, as well as negative KPIs, such as the percentage of red-eye flights taken and time travelers spend away from home.
PTI will calculate a total traveler well-being score, which firms can reference to make policy changes.
Additional updates
The PTI service is just one of several technology enhancements Amex GBT has unveiled, including a Travel Recommendation Engine, which will use artificial intelligence to analyze a traveler’s previous behavior, the patterns of similar travelers and company policy to anticipate where he or she wants to book.
Through the engine, the company says it’s also developing the ability to recommend trip content over new platforms such as Siri or Cortana.
Amex GBT is also outfitting its mobile app with a real-time messaging platform for travelers and travel counselors, as well as new features including click-to-call and face or fingerprint login.
It’s also launching a hotel re-shopping solution that identifies rate drops to find and book cheaper hotel rooms that match amenity and bed preferences.