Generation Y – people born between 1982 and 2000 – is the fastest growing segment of the modern workforce. Carlson Wagonlit Travel’s Asia-Pacific president, Kelly Kuhn, tells Karen Yue what that means to the consumption of business travel and corporate meetings

How are Generation Y travellers impacting the meetings business? What comes to mind immediately?

The rapid rise in the use of video conferencing. The technology is fast improving and it is inexpensive to use. Young people – Generation Y – are more comfortable with using that technology to have effective meetings, than to have traditional meetings where one gets on a plane and travels to customers, shakes their hands and closes a deal face-to-face.

That’s just as well, as companies are always under pressure to look for ways to be more effective in their spending. Virtual meetings will play a very important part in how businesses conduct their meetings.

Clients are now looking at how to incorporate virtual meetings into their corporate policy and working out how their travel partners can help manage that.

If virtual meetings are the future with this generation, what will happen to corporate travel suppliers like airlines?

You know, every flight I’ve been on recently was full, especially in Asia-Pacific. Hotels and airlines here have become really good at managing their yield, and are able to make sure their capacity perfectly matches demand. That’s why prices are projected to rise in major business cities in this region.

Business travel takes up time too. Here at CWT (Carlson Wagonlit Travel), our executive team sits in all continents and we cannot possibly meet as often as we need to. So we have bi-weekly or monthly calls instead of flying everyone to meet all the time.

The way I see it, virtual meetings will help to fill the gap in capacity and allow more connections between people. You can now have more conversations with people, which may not have been possible in the past because the flight was full or because your company was trying to control cost. You can now have better attendance at meetings and events in a more cost-efficient way.

But when this generation of people does travel for business, what do they look for in a product? And are they brand loyal?

They are not brand loyal and I know this is true for many different (product) sectors. They look for features and functionality above the brand. They want hotels that offer really fast Wi-Fi and really convenient locations, for instance. They want airlines that offer the best selection of flight times, and they are used to flying with low-cost carriers.

I’ve also noticed that social media content is a big factor in Generation Y’s travel decisions. They will find out where their friends have stayed in a destination, and that information can influence where they choose to be accommodated for leisure and business. I find that very interesting. I work hard to keep my leisure side of life separate from my business movements, but this generation of people melds both together.

So what we have done is to create a tool called CWT Hotel Intel (launched November 2012), which incorporates a hotel review function into a controlled corporate environment. It allows the client to promote preferred properties in the programme while enabling travellers to share with colleagues reviews on hotels they have stayed at. It is very cool, as it allows Generation Y travellers to do what they like – i.e. to share product reviews – while driving policy compliance.

L’Oreal in France is one of the companies piloting it right now. It believes that if it doesn’t do this, it will lose its Generation Y travellers to outside the policy. L’Oreal wanted good information and to give good feedback to its preferred hotel partners, and CWT Hotel Intel is a really good way to gather that precious feedback.

Will CWT be developing more tools for smart devices, seeing how addicted this generation is to apps?

I remember a recent GBTA survey saying that China will surpass the US in business travel spend in the next couple of years, and none of that travel is being booked on a computer today. Bookings will leapfrog computers and laptops and go right to tablets and phones.

The need to get really good information on a tablet or phone, and to be able to make a booking on smart devices, is the future.

Across the world, we have deployed a new app called CWT To Go. It is very cool. I use it for all my trips. It is especially useful when there is a flight delay, as I will be the first to be informed of it, before the announcement is even made at the airport. I can research alternative flights right away, as well as look for hotels and ground transport, although I cannot make a booking. Yet. We are working on that now.

The check-in alert is also a delight. I’ll get this alert 24 hours before my flight, and when I click on it, I will be taken straight to the airlines’ website. All my information is captured on the website and I can just pick my seat and check right in. It is powered by Worldmate, a publicly available app that is also owned by CWT.

Last September, we launched CWT Online, an online booking tool just for China-based business travellers. It is available in both English and Mandarin, and users can book with this app. We are the first to do this, although I imagine someone else will do something similar eventually. For now, it is fun to be first-mover.

So, technology is king when it comes to pleasing the Generation Y traveller then.

Exactly. Technology will help companies accommodate Generation Y travellers. If travel information is easily available and (booking tools) appear to be customised for them, rather than something basic, these travellers will be even more interested in using it and keeping to policy.

Generation Y individuals are generally known to prefer breaking with tradition and to want greater control of their lives. Even with such cool booking technology, do you suppose they will still demand freedom in travel booking and therefore prefer unmanaged travel?

We asked that question in our recent travel industry forecast and found that they were not any more inclined to book outside of policy than any of the other age groups. (The tendency to book outside of policy) was a less than two-per-cent variance between (the age groups of) 35-45 and 45-55.

I think one of the common misunderstandings of this generation is that its people do not want to follow rules. I think the real rebels who will push the boundaries of communication and change the way people meet are those of the next generation, those who will join the workforce in 10 years’ time.

I think Generation Y travellers just want things at their convenience. If all the information is easily available to them, and if the company makes it fun for them to comply, they will book within policy like everyone else.

How do you make complying with travel policy fun?

We are just rolling out the idea of gamification – creating a gaming environment to encourage travel policy compliance – in the US and will eventually bring it to Asia. Travellers who book according to policy can earn points, compete against colleagues who also travel, and win something that is determined by the company. This appeals to the nature of Generation Y people who are used to gaming.

A programme like this also makes policy education fun. Nobody is interested in reading 150 pages of compliance rules, but make it a game and people are more likely to remember who their preferred suppliers are.

It takes the young to understand the young. Is CWT bringing in new blood to find ways to reach out effectively to Generation Y travellers?

Our customers are getting younger and, indeed, our employees must reflect the age of our customer base. Our head of social media for the region, for instance, is in her mid-20s. She’s fantastic and incredibly creative.

Here in Singapore, we have great programmes with the local universities and the Ministry of Manpower that provide internship and on-the-job training opportunities.

Generation Y is our future. These people will be the ones who will talk to our next generation of clients, the travel managers, who are from the same generation. They will be the ones speaking the language of the new workforce.

Oh, guess what? Nobody says ‘cool’ anymore.

Oh dear. I say ‘cool’ all the time!

(Laughs) Me too! We really are so uncool.

We have only just started this exciting new programme to bring Generation Y into our company, whether they are still in university or have graduated, through active internships. We aim to get them interested in the travel industry, specifically in sales and programme management.

How have such internship programmes helped CWT?  

Our head of innovation here, who is part of our global innovation team, had two interns recently for two months. One of them was a boy from UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles), who worked on finding out what sort of technologies and applications would be important to the next generation of travellers (during his stint with us). He conducted surveys and talked to our clients.

CWT To Go and CWT Hotel Intel are some of the tools that came out of our innovation team. We are now testing an idea that allows one to book door-to-door.