Making travel smarter

Few indus­tries are going to be left untouched by the emer­gence of pow­er­ful tech­nolo­gies that change both how peo­ple live their lives and how they nav­i­gate the world of work. The future of busi­ness trav­el man­age­ment is no dif­fer­ent and will undoubt­ed­ly see inno­v­a­tive tech­nolo­gies cre­at­ed which bet­ter meet the evolv­ing demands of trav­ellers and organ­i­sa­tions.

Reduc­ing trav­el costs, elim­i­nat­ing unnec­es­sary trav­el and sim­pli­fy­ing the entire trav­el expe­ri­ence remain impor­tant goals for cor­po­rate trav­el book­ers, but there is a grow­ing need to gain an under­stand­ing of how these fac­tors relate to trav­eller well­be­ing.

Unless organ­i­sa­tions are able to uni­fy their dis­parate data, for exam­ple by join­ing togeth­er human resources (HR) data with trav­el data, it will be dif­fi­cult to under­stand the often com­plex rea­sons behind why peo­ple trav­el in the way they do. Yet many organ­i­sa­tions hold their data in silos that lim­it their abil­i­ty to extract action­able insights to help improve the expe­ri­ence for trav­ellers.

“By bring­ing togeth­er data sets from around the busi­ness, includ­ing HR records, absen­teeism and attri­tion infor­ma­tion, organ­i­sa­tions are able to iden­ti­fy trav­eller per­sonas that pro­vide insight into the prob­a­ble impact trav­el is hav­ing on employ­ees,” says Trevor Elswood, chief com­mer­cial offi­cer at Capi­ta Trav­el and Events, a lead­ing spe­cial­ist in trav­el, meet­ings and event man­age­ment.

Capi­ta Trav­el and Events have heav­i­ly invest­ed in advanced data sci­ence exper­tise. Their work is enabling organ­i­sa­tions to improve under­stand­ing of the under­ly­ing rela­tion­ship between trav­el and the per­for­mance of employ­ees, as well as the wider organ­i­sa­tion­al impact of trav­el and meet­ing spend. Through their smarter work­ing approach, backed by behav­iour­al sci­ence, Capi­ta Trav­el and Events sup­ports employ­ees and trav­el book­ers to make informed deci­sions when book­ing trav­el.

Through smarter work­ing, we enable employ­ees and trav­el book­ers to make informed deci­sions when book­ing trav­el, all with well­be­ing in mind

“With thou­sands of these data records, we can start to see the wider view of their cur­rent trav­el poli­cies. Deep analy­sis of data sources has con­sis­tent­ly indi­cat­ed a high con­cen­tra­tion of trav­el leads to a high­er prob­a­bil­i­ty of being absent ver­sus their non-trav­el­ling col­leagues,” says Mr Elswood.

A key strat­e­gy that many organ­i­sa­tions are now fol­low­ing is mak­ing the link between trav­el and meet­ings. Capi­ta Trav­el and Events are inno­vat­ing in this space with their “meet­ings at the heart of trav­el” think­ing. Meet­ings gen­er­ate trav­el, so through under­stand­ing the total cost of a meet­ing, includ­ing the impact on well­be­ing, trav­el time and lost pro­duc­tiv­i­ty, you start to cre­ate strate­gic oppor­tu­ni­ty.

The use of trav­eller per­sonas allows organ­i­sa­tions to improve the lev­el of per­son­al­i­sa­tion their employ­ees have through­out their entire trav­el expe­ri­ence. “We enable organ­i­sa­tions to present a book­ing process to employ­ees that has already been designed to offer the most rel­e­vant ser­vices to them. If they want to select or des­e­lect items, it’s pos­si­ble with­in com­pa­ny pol­i­cy, but the organisation’s best out­come is always pre­s­e­lect­ed, based on some of the trav­el com­po­nents. Indi­vid­u­als have to then con­scious­ly des­e­lect that choice; it’s a high­ly effec­tive nudge designed to ensure trav­ellers and trav­el arrangers do the right things,” says Mr Elswood.

As busi­ness lead­ers under­stand the impor­tance of employ­ee well­be­ing and increas­ing­ly view employ­ees as one of their most valu­able assets, they will ben­e­fit from part­ner­ing with a trav­el man­age­ment firm that can sup­port employ­ees in being well rest­ed, pro­duc­tive and hap­py in their jobs.

Capi­ta Trav­el and Events is unique­ly posi­tioned to meet the chang­ing demands of cus­tomers as the trav­el man­age­ment firm has appoint­ed a chief data offi­cer, a head of behav­iour­al sci­ence and head of trav­eller expe­ri­ence to ensure organ­i­sa­tions not just under­stand why peo­ple trav­el the way they do, but also shift trav­eller behav­iours so they plan, book, meet and trav­el smarter.

“We’ve built our busi­ness through strate­gic acqui­si­tions to address sig­nif­i­cant mar­ket gaps. We inte­grat­ed indus­try-lead­ing firms, includ­ing a hotel book­ing spe­cial­ist, a rail spe­cial­ist, and a meet­ings and events spe­cial­ist. This has result­ed in a com­pa­ny that is focused on cre­at­ing bet­ter out­comes and val­ue for our cus­tomers who share sim­i­lar pro­files of high lev­els of domes­tic trav­el and meet­ings spend, and the need for uncom­pro­mised online enable­ment,” Mr Elswood con­cludes.

For more infor­ma­tion please vis­it www.capitatravelevents.co.uk