Millennial business travellers in APAC driving post-digital tech wave

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Millennial travellers are driving corporate travel towards a post-digital era in Asia-Pacific, as their exceptionally high use of digital channels is being met by mounting frustrations with existing offerings, according to a new report by Travelport.

Under the report, millennials are defined as those between the ages of 18 and 34.

A high number of APAC’s millennial business travellers use their mobile devices to book and pay for trips

More millennial business travellers in Asia-Pacific use a mobile device when researching (68%) and booking (67%) a trip than in any other region worldwide, found the study. Use is second highest in North America (64% and 55%, respectively) and lowest in Europe (54% and 45%, respectively).

Furthermore, one third (36%) of millennial business travellers in Asia-Pacific claim that they now use mobile devices to both book and pay for “every trip”.

In addition, the research revealed that more millennial business travellers in Asia-Pacific are turning to travel booking sites to help them discover “bleisure” experiences (45%) than in any other region. Once again, North America (41%) ranks second and use is lowest in Europe (26%).

The study also revealed, however, that millennial business travellers in Asia-Pacific have a growing list of pain points with current digital offerings.

Around half said that they are still left frustrated by companies not giving them access to their booking information on all their mobile devices (53%), not using data to remember their preferences (45%), and not giving them the option of booking everything in one place (48%).

Mark Meehan, group vice president and managing director of APACMEA at Travelport, said: “Millennial travellers in Asia-Pacific are now heavily using digital channels in all stages of business travel. This high use, however, is being matched by increasing frustrations with existing offerings, which indicates corporate travel in the region is on the verge of leaving the digital age and entering the post-digital era.”

The notion of a post-digital era was recently addressed by Accenture, which posited that digital is simply the price of admission for doing business, and that it is no longer a differentiation advantage. In the post-digital world, it argued, differentiation comes from applying digital in powerful new ways.

Meehan added: “In this new era, sellers of corporate travel need to use digital channels to deliver value in more modern and sophisticated ways. This could be by solving more complex problems, enhancing personalisation or more proactively meeting millennials’ needs for memorable bleisure experiences.”

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