The Business Travel Magazine Feb/Mar 2019

TECHNOLOGY
[ TRAVEL ON THE GO ]
MOBILE APPETITE
The demand for mobile-friendly services shows no signs of abating,
writes Linda Fox, who examines travellers’ biggest priorities
Amobile experience that captures
day-to-day tasks such as emails
is now a given but travellers still
yearn for something that allows for
much more in a consolidated way.
Research from Travelport released late
last year shows that business travellers
also want elements and functionality such
as voice search, e-payments and digital
room keys to help simplify their trips.
The 2018 Global Digital Traveler
Survey of 16,000 travellers from 25
countries reveals that more than half
of participants have now booked and
paid for part, or all of, a business trip
via smartphone.
While the focus of the study was
leisure travellers, as the lines continue
to blur the findings will continue to put
pressure on the corporate travel space,
with travellers looking for the same userfriendly
experience, if not better.
Mobile applications are now a firm
feature when it comes to making life easier
on the go with maps, airlines, weather and
social media among the preferred apps
that travellers reach for.
Demonstrating the point, the research
says nine out of ten travellers have apps
on their phones that are specifically used
in-destination.
What’s interesting here from a business
travel perspective is developments to bring
in far more contextual services to
travellers’ mobile devices. Event-based
Leisure travellers want
searching and booking
functionality but corporates
prioritise having an entire trip
itinerary in one place and
real-time flight alerts”
messaging is one good example which
some TMCs and their partners have
developed in line with the consumerisation
trend in corporate travel, as well as the
desire from corporate customers to have
access to timely information.
While leisure travellers put the ability to
search and book flights as the most
important feature in apps, for corporate
travellers it was having the entire trip
itinerary in one place and access to realtime
flight alerts, which come out second
and third in the study.
Other technologies such as voice control
and newer payment methods are also
gaining momentum. The Travelport
research shows that half of travellers use
voice to search during booking or while
travelling, up from 3% a year ago.
It adds that in China and Turkey, more
than 70% of travellers are already using
voice search functionality.
The finding comes as no surprise with
voice being the most natural way we
communicate, across all generations. In
corporate travel, it has already been
accepted as perhaps the most efficient way
for carrying out tasks while on the go.
Further efficiency will also be driven in
new and more seamless payment
methods. It’s often the business traveller
who will have Apple Pay on his or her
mobile device, for example, and
acceptance of such methods is growing.
The research shows that 55% of
business travel respondents see the
ability to pay via mobile phone as
important or very important, compared
to 47% of leisure travellers.
In addition, it’s business travellers
that are driving innovation such as
hotel check-in and room lighting and
temperature control via an app, and
50% say they also want to use a digital
room key on their phone to unlock a
hotel room – a feature that is gaining
traction and will surely become the norm.
It’s fair to say that leisure and corporate
travellers are not that different when it
comes to technology for travel. After all,
we all want access to convenient services
that make travel a more seamless and
efficient process so that the actual trip can
be the best it can be.
26 THEBUSINESSTRAVELMAG.COM