ASK THE TRAVEL MANAGER
Putting your questions to corporate arrangers. This month: will self-booking apps spell the end of travel management?
Apps have meant a big change for business travel, but it’s important to distinguish between those that provide useful information when you travel, and those that encourage you to book through them.
As far as the first group is concerned, I see these as productivity enhancement tools that facilitate your trips and enable the products we buy for you to be more efficient. Some will give you the weather at your destination, inform you of gate changes before they’re made public and before I am able to inform you myself, and flag up delays. Since they tap into global distribution systems, or those of the airlines, an app may help you get that information even before it appears on the departure board. Some companies are starting to embrace these apps and recommend particular ones to travellers.
The second type gives you access to content outside of the corporate travel programme – and this is where it can start to get a little slippery. In one sense, these apps provide the same information as the websites you can access from your laptop, which can sometimes show fares that are less than those quoted by the travel manager. As I’ve argued before in this column, if you look at the terms and conditions, these tickets are not always as cheap as they seem. Still, there’s no doubt the apps are both convenient and tempting, especially if you have to make a booking in an emergency.
Again, some companies are looking at these apps, and providing they are approved and that the booking can flow back into the programme – allowing it to count towards corporate spend and for appropriate discounts to be applied and management information to be collected for future negotiations with suppliers – it might not be a problem.
In a way, these apps aren’t giving travellers anything they didn’t already have. There’s nothing stopping you from walking to the nearest ticket counter when things go wrong, but now you have that information in the palm of your hand. There are some situations where using the apps is appropriate, hopefully within the framework of the company’s policy. I’d say that 99 per cent of the time people do the right thing, but for those likely to stray from the programme, there’s no doubt they can put temptation in temptation’s way.
As travel managers, there’s a lot more we can do to help. There’s no point trying to ban the apps or the smartphones that carry them under the pretext that they are not approved, for instance, since, even if the traveller is issued with a phone, they will probably have an iPhone or Android device for personal use. We’re better off encouraging them to stay within policy. In fact, forward-thinking companies are setting up approved app stores, showing which work within the programme.
There’s also the duty-of-care aspect, and technology is being developed that can support that – in some hotels you can already use your phone to check in or as a door key. These apps can also track your location, just as social media ones do – flight tracking apps know where you are flying to and with whom.
Do apps threaten the position of the travel manager? I think the opposite is true – behind the app you will still need a manager to administer the programme. A travel manager is needed if the leverage of the company is to be used for negotiating deals.
Geo-location and geo-fencing technology will also allow better communication between the travel manager and the traveller. Imagine an icon pops up on your phone showing you nearby restaurants with which we have negotiated discounts, or preferred hotels in an area, and how to get there – it’s at times like these that you will probably be glad to have a travel manager working somewhere in the background.
■ With thanks to ACTE, a professional association representing corporate travel managers and travel service providers in 29 countries.