Business travel spending is set to hit a record $1.5 trillion this year,
surpassing the previous record set in 2019. Despite pent-up demand, the current
traveler experience is stressful, cumbersome and barely enjoyable. While
numbers are set to reach an all-time high, fixing the broken ecosystem is a key
step in ensuring the industry’s ongoing success.
Transforming the corporate travel experience
hinges on an industry shift to service that combines advanced technology and
human interaction. In addition to hiring a skilled workforce, the strategic use
of AI will be critical in taking the hassle out of travel management that has
plagued the industry (and slowed it down) for so long. Agentic AI in particular
will be instrumental in the transformation of the corporate travel industry,
taking the “dirty work” out of travel and ensuring the priority remains focused
on creating the ultimate traveler experience.
AI will be a game-changer especially for
travel managers who often complain about being bogged down by ancillary
questions such as policy budget thresholds, rather than spending time helping
travelers optimize their trip.
Transform
Travel by Investing in People
For the ecosystem to thrive, we must take a
holistic approach centered on establishing travel management-as-a-service
instead of a piecemeal approach. This requires building an end-to-end service
that blends humans and technology to make data-driven decisions, automate
repetitive tasks, streamline processes and provide greater personalization.
This type of seamless service is essential for
augmenting the travel manager’s job and creating a stress-free experience for
business travelers from start to finish. Investing in people in addition to
technology will catapult our industry into the new era of travel.
Great customer service at the forefront
requires designating best-in-class, specialized travel agents by region and
customer base to work closely with travel managers. This specialization and
working in lockstep with travel managers is essential in improving the traveler
journey.
Another important lesson I learned after many
years in the industry is that excellence isn’t just about providing great
customer service but creating the right balance of high-touch human and
self-serve interactions. Reaching this goal requires a robust and talented team
and the implementation of advanced technology. AI will be a necessary component
of this improved experience.
AI
Takes the Hassle out Travel Management
Agentic AI is
poised to transform managed travel into an exceptional, top-notch service.
From bespoke experiences
at scale to automating monotonous
tasks, agentic AI has the potential to exponentially improve the travel
experience in relatively short order.
From a travel manager
perspective, AI can be programmed to study
call history and customer data to identify a traveler’s full reservation and
determine the best way to help before the conversation even begins. As a
result, travel managers can be smarter about routing them to the best agent.
Furthermore, using an AI agent to answer questions in
real time can offload some of the more tedious work done by travel managers. By
relieving them of repetitive tasks, travel pros are free to focus on what can’t
be accomplished with automation, such as risk management, travel policies and
contract negotiation. AI agents can be leveraged for many other tasks including
flight monitoring and disruptions, something that has become critical in our
day and age of pandemics, political turmoil and natural disasters (just to name
a few).
One
Step Closer to the Perfect Trip
As the travel industry continues its upward trajectory,
creating the “Perfect Trip” for business travelers that is smooth sailing and
personalized to their specific needs is more possible now than ever before.
Emerging innovations like AI that support rather than threaten the role of
travel managers are accelerants of change.
Use of agentic AI is one of many ways we’ll drive the
industry—over the coming months and years—towards taking a more holistic, technology-driven approach to transform corporate travel and to ensure travel managers are supported to deliver
what business travelers want and deserve.
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