Artificial intelligence will control corporate travel within a couple of years

Artificial intelligence applications will control corporate travel in two to three years and will enable greater efficiency in management, while providing greater satisfaction to travelers, according to a report by Amadeus Spain and the Asociación de Asociació;The report by Amadeus España and the Asociación Corporativa de Agencias de Viajes Especializadas (ACAVE) concludes. Similarly, the simplification of the management of travel programs is growing in importance.

The study “Trends and future forecasts for the travel agency sector. 100 proposals (and more) to anticipate the times to come”, has been prepared by the research team of the Department of Econometrics and Applied Economics of the University of Barcelona, with the collaboration of the Bosch i Gimpera Foundation of the University of Barcelona.

The paper identifies a series of specific characteristics for the scope of the corporate segment. In this way, there will be an increased relevance of travel management, counting from pre-trip until the traveler returns, along with the calculation of the end-to-end cost.  Similarly, the simplification of travel program management is growing in importance.In addition, travel managers (TMs) will tend to prioritize traveler behavior and compliance with compliance policies, and travel agencies will reassess their role in the travel industry;The report's conclusions state that travel agencies should reevaluate their role as a "comprehensive advisor" and collaborate more with the TM on travel policy and expense control. 

Other trends it identifies for the next five years include the following:

- An increase in ‘bleisure’ (combining leisure and business) is forecast to increase as ‘millennials’ take more corporate travel. 

- There will be a growing importance of corporate SSRs to share knowledge among employees and optimize internal communication. There will also be greater use of intelligent instant messaging.

- For cost optimization, there will be an increasing application of digital tools, anticipatory purchasing, the use of corporate rates and online booking.

- There will be greater use of alternative payment methods, such as the use of virtual cards or the use of bitcoin. Greater use of digital biometrics is expected. New protocols will be incorporated to ensure transaction security.

MOBILITY SOLUTIONS

According to the study, the generalization of technological mobility solutions will force companies to provide their employees with means to facilitate their travel, with more flexibility and responsiveness.

In this sense, corporate travelers require integrated access to content that is increasingly local and atomized (cabs, restaurants, complementary airline services, collaborative economy...). Online tools will continue to be a key point of service provision for this segment.

Technological providers, on the other hand, will be looking for new ways to unify approval processes, reservation management, mobility solutions, expense processing and reporting systems into a single platform.

It is expected that there will be an increased application of state-of-the-art self-booking tools, with the aim of facilitating TMs to manage the corporate travel cycle (before, during and after travel, control and adjust costs).

BLOCKCHAIN AND CHATBOTS

It is likely that in the medium term (five or six years) voice commands and intelligent ‘chatbots’ will have been incorporated, although their integration will only be for the most routine tasks. More complex content will require more programming.

Learning through machine learning is still in its embryonic stage and will have to wait a few more years to become a reality. The gradual incorporation of the ‘blockchain’ is expected.