Delivering Covid-related info in the booking path is a challenge that may perpetuate outsized reliance on human support, but tech is the long-term answer. Booking tool developers hope that when corporate travelers come back in earnest, they’re pleasantly surprised by improved user experiences. Systems tap some of the same sources for Covid details that, pre-pandemic, sought to make sense of shopping for increasingly complex fares.
Growing activism around controversial laws passed in recent weeks and seen by many as restricting voting prompted hundreds of business leaders across the country to condemn voter suppression. Some corporate travel service providers were among them, including American Airlines, American Express, Delta Air Lines, JetBlue, Lyft, Marriott, Mastercard, SAP Concur, Uber and United Airlines.
Business travelers who haven’t seen the inside of an airport in over a year may wonder what changes await them. Many are obvious in the Covid era, including new policies on face masks and social distancing, but inconsistent enforcement leaves some people feeling uneasy. In general, travelers likely will notice “how things are being run and managed,” said Aaron McMillan, managing director of operations, policy and support for United Airlines. That’s probably not something most travelers considered pre-pandemic.
Should you Zoom or should you go? Veteran travel industry advisor Scott Gillespie developed a simple tool to help decide. There are others, and he expects more. There’s pent-up demand for in-person connections, but Covid brought new obstacles to whether and how they’re made. The reduction in office use, widespread adoption of virtual conferencing technology and zeroing-out of travel budgets change the equation. Sustainability is higher on the agenda, too.
Many organizations wrestle with how to excel in rapidly changing times. At some point or another, they encounter challenges that force them to modify the ways they do things so they can continue to meet expectations. Some do it better than others, and it usually comes down to how confident they feel about their teams’ ability to absorb disruptions. What is it about teams that are successful at recovering from disruption? Previous and ongoing research suggests swarm intelligence could be part of the answer.
Bhart Sarin resigned from his post as president of the Global Business Travel Association. His announcement came a few weeks before the association’s members start voting on bylaw changes and a few months before they vote to fill at least six and as many as eight vacancies on the board of directors.
Immigration law firm Fragomen Worldwide partially spun out a tech company whose visa processing and tax compliance services are now available to the corporate travel market. The company, Nomadic, arrives at an interesting time after some incubation and Covid hibernation. Cross-border business travel is exceedingly complicated, and not just because of testing, insurance, vaccine or quarantine requirements.
Considering pent-up demand, the effects of evolving traveler demographics and newfound wiggle room in corporate budgets, Brandon Strauss of KesselRun...
[CORRECTION, June 28, 2018: The International Air Transport Association projects its New Distribution Capability initiative to achieve critical mass by...
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