Total Trip Planning Bridging the Door-To-Door Gap for Business Travelers Total Trip Planning: Bridging the Door-To-Door Gap for Business Travelers
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Total Trip Planning Bridging the door-to-door gap for business travelers Total Trip Planning: Bridging the door-to-door gap for business travelers Total Trip Planning: Bridging the door-to-door gap for business travelers Infographic: Bridging the gap 3 Overview 4 Total Trip Planning: The secret is door-to-door guidance 5 A planning primer 9 A closer look: Real scenarios 11 Reality check: Is Total Trip Planning reliable? 13 Contents Behind the scenes 14 Calculating CO2 15 Infographic: Door-to-door trip planning for businesses 16 Finding the best meeting location 17 Trip Planning in action 18 Final word: Summing up Total Trip Planning 21 Claudia Unger, Director of Research & Intelligence for BCD Travel Claudia leads a research team charged with identifying ideas that businesses can use to improve their travel programs. They take intriguing tactics and concepts that are being used outside our industry— and some that are way out on the frontier, like behavioral economics—and explore how to make them resonate in managed travel. 2 | ©2014 by BCD Travel.Travel All rights reserved.reserved Total Trip Planning: Bridging the door-to-door gap for business travelers Bridging the gap Getting travelers door to door—not just airport to airport Travel planning can be time consumingand expensive because business travelers aren’t travel experts SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH They don’t have a SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH single source they trust for % SEARCH SEARCH SEARCH the right and best price— they end up wasting time and 1 SEARCH 42 of them use 3 or more sources to plan a trip costing your company money And the results they find only give them airport-to-airport capabilities... but what they really need is door to door Enter Total Trip Planning �200 Giving all information... �150 on one screen... �80 while providing your travelers with true Travel Time Productivity CO2 Price mode emission door-to-door options They save time... Reduce and you save money Up to research time % by 35savings 2.5hours in travel cost Source: 1Travelport, 2010 3 | ©2014 by BCD Travel. All rights reserved. Total Trip Planning: Bridging the door-to-door gap for business travelers Overview Boost productivity, savings and compliance with start-to-finish trip tools Business travel has never been simple, and Here are some eye-opening facts Business today’s self-service booking environment travelers headed to an unfamiliar adds complexity—along with convenience destination spend an average of 2.5 hours and savings A business trip doesn’t start at researching trip logistics, generally tapping one airport and end at another Travelers into as many as four sources of must navigate their way to and from flights information.1 More than 40% of business and also figure out how to get to meetings travelers use three or more sources to plan and events, often in an unfamiliar city. In their trip2—and chances are high that the past, business travelers might have they’re not the sources the company turned to high-touch services provided by prefers These sources may be consumer your travel management company Now, travel sites that are outside corporate they go online travel policy, adding to costs and making it more difficult to keep up with employees’ While online travel sources and services— travel plans The online sources a traveler especially mobile apps—provide access to taps into on their own also may provide anytime, anywhere information, they also inaccurate information, since much of the lengthen your travelers’ already trip-related data out there is not updated overloaded to-do lists Today, a business in real time. Rail, bus and subway traveler is responsible for researching schedules may be outdated Posted fares how to get from Point A to Point B using may not be available when a traveler clicks airport transfers, public transportation, the button to book. Faced with bad railways, taxis—maybe even ferries All that information, the traveler starts the planning takes time away from the job the trip-planning process over again, and that company actually hired them to do, 2 5 hours of research grows robbing the employee and the company of hours of productivity. 1 Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge 2 Travelport research, The Well Connected Traveler, 2010 4 | ©2014 by BCD Travel. All rights reserved. Overview Total Trip Planning: Bridging the door-to-door gap for business travelers What’s more, business travelers may hit Even in a better scenario, like requiring the road a lot, but they’re not travel business travelers to make start-to-finish Where’s the best experts. They easily—and often—make trip decisions within the parameters of place to meet? transportation or other trip-related your corporate online booking tool, there decisions that can cost your company extra are problems Most online booking tools money Relying on your travelers to do the address flights and hotels. Some cover rail planning on their own, they often search and cars. But very few offer guidance or Do I need to be outside company approved channels booking options for public transportation, face-to-face? Roping them back in to book with taxis or other common ways of getting preferred suppliers will be tricky And when from the door of the airport to the door of a self-service traveler books with a the hotel non-preferred supplier, it has short-term effects on cost and long-term effects on Your company can bridge this trip-planning What’s the your company’s ability to negotiate future gap and also nudge travelers toward good greenest choice? deals Every booking with a non-preferred decisions Currently there are a few supplier saps your volume-buying power door-to-door trip planning solutions available to corporate travelers, e g Travelers may embrace the idea of limitless routeRank, KDS Neo and Rome2Rio None How do I get options until they’re frustrated by having of them are perfect – yet; but they’re there? Plane, train too many choices, or by the less-than-ideal getting a lot of media attention already. or car? outcomes of transportation decisions Start by selecting the best corporate travel they’ve made. In addition, they usually planning tools, toss in a few extras (like a aren’t weighing price against productivity. CO2 calculator and a little “behavioral Most importantly, a traveler’s misguided economics” consumer psychology) and Where do I start? travel decisions could decrease their own combine this door-to-door planning safety and security and make it more capability with existing travel booking tools. difficult to locate them in an emergency— This paper walks you through how to do affecting your corporate duty of care. that using the Total Trip Planning solution. 5 | ©2014 by BCD Travel. All rights reserved. Total Trip Planning: Bridging the door-to-door gap for business travelers Total Trip Planning: The secret is door-to-door guidance Today’s problem: Too many choices for travelers— and they aren’t travel experts Today, travelers often organize their own trips using a corporate online booking tool Self-service lets travelers easily book Like most things in life, the way trips from anywhere at anytime. It can Poor use of employee time corporate travelers plan a business boost traveler input and corporate savings, trip has changed in the digital age but it also leaves a gap: Online booking Planning a complete trip requires a lot of A few years ago, a traveler would call tools generally don’t help the traveler get research Employees—who are experts at their corporate travel management around before and after the main part of their specific jobs—find they must instead company and give their destination the journey. That can lower productivity, spend time delving into: to an agent who researched misdirect corporate expertise and decrease the options and set up the right a company’s control of and insight into Modes of travel not only for the total-trip itinerary at the right employee travels main part of the journey, but also price—all within policy The traveler for local transfers and other ground kept working while he waited for a transportation call back from the consultant, who or or Origins and destinations, e g , which explained the trip plan and then ? ? ? airports to choose and how to navigate booked everything ground logistics in an unfamiliar city You can make a difference by adding your clout behind getting Suppliers that serve these origins and total trip planning ready for travel destinations—and their prices management: Ask your online booking Self-service trip planning eats up an tool provider to offer door-to-door average of 2 5 hours3 per trip, valuable capabilities whether they build it time that your employees could be in-house or open up to integrating spending on their jobs. tools that are already out there 3 Statistical Laboratory, University of Cambridge 6 | ©2014 by BCD Travel. All rights reserved. Total Trip Planning: The secret is door-to-door guidance Total Trip Planning: Bridging the door-to-door gap for business travelers Lack of travel expertise Unmanaged bookings Business travelers aren’t travel experts Even if your online booking tool assembles The bottom line is that independent They may not find the best options options for your travelers, it might be too research by travelers falls outside your when they trawl websites to plan how late to influence travelers when they’re corporate travel program By using they’ll get from one place to another A already booking. Alternatives to travel, unmanaged online resources, travelers can lot of great-sounding deals might not be like video conferences, should be visible easily: available when it’s time to book because to employees during planning And there’s data on many consumer travel sites more to think about: Every trip involves Choose non-preferred suppliers isn’t dynamic Rather, these sites rely on not only questions about logistics, but also Book their trip through non-preferred scheduled updates that happen once an about employee productivity, true travel channels, leading to uncertain pricing hour, or less frequently.