This year’s Business Travel Show featured presentations and panel discussions with experts from across the industry. We’ve collated our highlights for those who missed the event.
The days of one-size-fits-all business travel programmes might be numbered. By segmenting your travellers into groups based on their needs and expectations, you can tailor multiple policies to fit. Nearly three-quarters of the audience at this panel believed profiling would make travellers happier and nearly half thought it could improve compliance. Further benefits include a better return on investment and overall cost savings.
Identify Potential Savings
Marine Bergeron from CWT shared an example where her company profiled travellers at a large multinational. It worked out that if everyone booked within its travel policy, the organisation could save around 15% on airfares.
This led CWT to look at ways of developing a custom policy in conjunction with a small group of high-ranking frequent travellers. Together, they identified $500,000 of potential cost savings providing the group stayed 100% compliant. To date, they’re at 92%, which is still way beyond the typical 70% rate in global corporations.
The example stresses the importance of working with both the target group and their travel arrangers to discuss everyone’s needs. In addition, starting the process with a group of senior leaders meant they set an example to the rest of the company.
The Data Dilemma
CWT’s project was carried out before GDPR – so how do you segment travellers in an era where personal data is hard to come by? The answer to better profiling could lie in collecting data interactively by using behavioral analytics to determine people’s attitudes. A chatbot could be a good environment for this, but the attitude analysis tools required for this to be effective are not widely available.
Remember, opt-ins are more likely if you’re open about why you’re collecting information, what you already know about someone and how building a profile can ultimately help them.
Key Takeaways
- Profiling travellers can help save money, improve compliance and boost traveller satisfaction.
- One project at a large French multinational has identified $500,000 in savings and increased compliance to 92%.
- Post-GDPR, organisations will have to work harder to get the data they need to profile travellers accurately.