With global connectivity now essential for business operations, business travel disruptions are on the rise, affecting countless professionals. Our survey found that the majority of business travelers worldwide (nearly 9 in 10) experienced significant hardship in the past year due to unexpected flight delays, cancellations, or the need to change their itinerary. Whether caused by a pandemic, a global IT outage, geopolitical conflict, or extreme weather, these disruptions forced people to take unexpected actions. This highlights the urgent need for more resilient business travel solutions.
Over the summer, the world saw many airlines suffer global IT outages, canceling thousands of flights a day and delaying the resolution of technical issues for days.
For business travelers, interruptions are a concern. More than a quarter of business travelers worldwide have indicated they would turn down a business trip due to potential delays or cancellations. The challenge for business leaders and travel managers is that travelers on the move are not in their control. The solution to help business travelers is to simplify trip preparation and follow-up.
Travel disruptions can add unexpected time to travel. Therefore, companies should follow these three tips to simplify the process and save employees time:
Get started with automation
The first step is to ensure employees have the right tools. In a Forrester survey of decision makers, 76% of respondents said that increasing automation to improve efficiency and productivity is a high or top priority, and two-thirds cited a more automated travel and expense platform to achieve this goal.
Automated travel solutions help manage flight and hotel reservations while enforcing travel policies and automatically capturing expense information. Thanks to automation, employees no longer need to manually search for flights and hotels or submit physical expense reports.
During the global IT outage, airport customer service desks were overwhelmed and some travelers reported waiting up to 24 hours without knowing the status of their flights. These concerns could be addressed by modern travel platforms that provide instant travel alerts to keep travelers up to date and help them quickly find alternatives.
Extreme cases like this highlight the importance of automation and mobile applications to manage business trip updates and assist with rebooking if travel plans are affected. This gives travelers a clearer picture of how flight disruptions will impact their personal plans.
Automation not only improves business trip management, it also assists travelers by eliminating repetitive and time-consuming tasks such as tracking and sorting receipts, ensuring policy compliance, and processing refunds. This means business travelers don’t waste hours completing travel-related paperwork after returning from their trip.
Put Generative AI to work
Take automation a step further with Generative AI to improve your business journey every step of the way. Intelligent assistants and chatbots can provide intelligent recommendations for accommodations and small team meetings, all within organizational guidelines.
Employees can also use GenAI-powered tools to ask questions and increase compliance with travel plans. Instead of navigating lengthy expense policies or waiting for an employee to be contacted, users can ask a chatbot questions about compliance, adjusting travel itineraries, or how to use travel and expense management tools. An advanced platform can provide timely and accurate answers to support employees who face disruptions at any time of the day.
After recent IT outages, travelers could have used modern tools to quickly rebook and find alternative routes without enduring long, never-ending phone calls with customer service representatives. Chatbots that understand corporate policies can enforce compliance while ensuring business travelers get to their destination on time.
But employees have concerns about the use of AI. Our recent survey found that 48% of business travelers worldwide want to ensure their data is protected when artificial intelligence tools are introduced into the business travel process. Their sentiment is understandable, but it’s important to be responsible when using AI. Businesses should implement robust data protection measures and work with reputable companies that have strict data protection practices to ensure that business travelers are better protected from threats when entering sensitive information such as addresses and dates of birth when booking flights and hotels.
Compromises on travel preferences
Business travelers report having to cancel or reschedule meetings, spend extra unplanned days on business trips, or lengthen or add layover times in the past year. They are adapting to travel disruptions by allowing extra time on their travels, which means even longer trips.
Travel is already a challenge, but the increase in travel disruptions makes it even more challenging. Business leaders can ease the burden by compromising and offering more flexibility to business travelers.
While controlling costs will always be a business priority, companies should consider addressing convenience-focused requests, such as, Allowing overnight trips to cut down on long travel days, charging more for direct flights, or splurging on business class or premium class seats on longer flights. The ability to facilitate blended travel and add personal travel days to business trips is also a key benefit for business travelers.
Business travel is on the rise during a transitional period for the travel industry. Airlines and other travel companies will be slow to close technology and operational gaps. Meanwhile, companies can support business travelers by using advanced travel tools and flexibility to address issues at other stages of the journey.