The future landscape of business travel management will be driven by technology working seamlessly in the background, empowered by human support amid evolving traveller expectations, say panellists on the Pioneering Tomorrow: Rethinking the Future of Business Travel Management panel, part of the GBTA APAC Conference held last week in Singapore.
Bertrand Saillet, managing director of FCM Travel, kicked off the session by stating that it was necessary to innovate, particularly in integrating technology to support both travellers and corporate travel managers. He cautioned against over-reliance on a single technology, and highlighted the importance of robust aggregation layers, including traditional GDS systems, to ensure consistent service during disruptions.
Moreover, artificial intelligence will also no longer be an “incremental change”, but will continue to transform corporate travel management, opined Sarosh Waghmar, founder & chief product officer of Spotnana, a cloud-based travel-as-a-service platform.
“One of the biggest costs for TMCs at the end of the day is servicing costs, human capital. AI can help to solve this, which in turn, would result in cost savings, and these savings can be passed back to the customer,” he said.
Ana Pedersen, global chief commercial officer of CTM, next provided an example of how AI helped with cost efficiency during Cyclone Alfred off the coast of Queensland, Australia.
She elaborated: “CTM’s AI system Scout, saw a massive surge of self-servicing where customers could instantly cancel and rebook, within policy. This provided travellers with a more seamless experience, and we could redeploy over 30 full-time consultants to serve other customers with more complex situations that required human intervention.”
However, the increasing fragmentation of content remains a significant challenge for business travel buyers.
Saillet stressed the need for aggregation to navigate the overwhelming volume of options and ensure relevance for corporations. He cautioned against prematurely dismissing established systems like GDS, citing their reliability during disruptions when newer API-only connections can falter.
“The fire wasn’t actually at Heathrow itself, but nearby, and the airport managed to operate for most of the day. However, British Airways, despite promoting its APIs to travel agencies, saw its system buckle under the sheer number of requests hitting it at once. This meant that any travel agency exclusively using the British Airways API couldn’t help their customers, whereas those with access to the GDS, with its much higher processing capacity, were still able to operate,” Saillet elaborated.
Waghmar also echoed the importance of providing travellers with comprehensive choices, drawing parallels to the shopping experience on platforms like Amazon, where price comparison across multiple sites is usually unnecessary due to trust in the platform.
Regardless, Pedersen added that presenting travellers with a curated selection of the most relevant options is necessary. “We want to put out five most relevant options that resonate with company policy, company goals and traveller preferences.”
Looking ahead, panellists envision a future where travel management becomes increasingly integrated into the everyday tools and platforms that employees use.
Pedersen predicted the “retailisation of corporate travel”, where the user experience mirrors e-commerce platforms. She anticipates travel functionality becoming embedded within tools like Teams and Slack, powered by AI that can intuitively manage bookings, cancellations, and policy adherence in the background.
Meanwhile, Waghmar envisions TMCs evolving into “platform integrators”, leveraging AI to enhance their services.
