Portrait of Business Travel consumption patterns in Spain
Business travelers in Spain book the cheapest available airfare for their flights, stay in 3- or 4-star hotels close to their meeting locations that have Wi-Fi or other technology and rent a Category B car, as long as they have flexibility when it comes to picking up or dropping off the vehicle, according to Braintrust Business Bar results. Brokered sales vastly outperform direct distribution.
In a Business Travel market of 11.500 million euros of total spending in Spain in 2017, suppliers through direct sales take a 34% >of share, while the traditional agencies manage 38%, and the online agencies manage 22%. Large companies are those that show the highest use of agencies, and small companies are those that use direct channels to a greater extent.
The distance from the destination also has an impact on the channels used, and the greater the distance, the greater the use of agencies, while in the closest trips, companies opt for the use of end suppliers directly.
AÉREO
The aspects that companies look at when choosing a supplier to make their bookings are the price (with 65%), the possibility of booking non-stop flights (58%) and the timetables (48%).
Bearing this in mind, it seems normal that the type of tariff that most Spanish companies contract is the most economic one, chosen by 60% of those consulted. In addition, in two out of five bookings, the company's loyalty card is used.
Accommodation
Hotel expenses account for 34%
of the total corporate travel budget. Of this spend, 22% is spent on conferences or events and the remainder on room bookings for day-to-day travel.
Location outweighs price when choosing a hotel at 88%. As important aspects, beyond the quality-price ratio or location, the most important ones are cleanliness (62%) and technology (52%).
More than 90% of the bookings made by Spanish companies are in 3- and 4-star hotels, where loyalty cards are hardly used to make the reservation. Only 17% of companies use them.
RENT-A-CAR
Car rental accounts for 6% of total travel spending. By type of car, the Category B, with 44%, and C, with 40%, are the most hired by companies, which mainly look for value for money (58%);n quality-price ratio (58%), flexibility when picking up/delivering the vehicle (55% ) and insurance (44%) when choosing a car rental company.
CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE
The Braintrust Business Barómetro data show, once again, increasingly standardized services, where providers show few differences in terms of their product, and with a little differential customer experience, which causes companies to be not very loyal to the brands, opting for much more rational elements such as price.
Providers could improve with the personalization of the service by taking advantage of the customer information they have in their possession, an unstoppable trend that users are increasingly demanding, but still do not perceive. But the future is not in the data, but in applying business intelligence to that data and using it for the benefit of the customer.
“Despite the fact that tourism companies have a large amount of customer data, it is not used or valued when it comes to knowing the user, segmenting them and offering them a customer experience according to their needs”according to &A´ngel García Butragueño, head of the Tourism and Leisure Division of Braintrust and co-director of the Barómetro Turístico.
The barómetro notes that in a growing and sustainable market such as Business Travel, few suppliers take advantage of their CRM’s and very few offer their clients customized proposals based on their company profile.
As Butragueño points out, “industry suppliers have great opportunities ahead of them to better understand the market, their competitors, their customers, and act accordingly by making business decisions based on data and not so much on intuition.