Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Why Corporate Self-Booking continues to be stuck in Travel Management 101

I am listening to a BTN/Concur sponsored Webinar regarding corporate self-booking tools. Perhaps I have a bit of a jaded view on the subject as I have been involved with corporate self-booking since the early 1990s. This presentation contained no new information. The reason the corporate travel industry seems stuck in a loop of discussion of adoption and expense integration, I believe, is due to the very nature of the "corporate buyer". Managing travel at a company is rarely a career (though there are some exceptions). As a result, the person at the company who is tasked with managing travel costs changes every 3-4 years. Often these individuals come from non-travel backgrounds (finance, procurement, admin services). In 2008, it is amazing to listen to a Webinar which so dated and doesn't seem to address current online issues such social networking (blogs, user vendor ratings). The corporate travel industry needs to wake up and recognize how consumer online travel and general tech trends will impact the industry.

4 comments:

  1. Anonymous11:41 PM

    Norm, this is an interesting post and mirrors to some of our experiences in this space. Majority of the corporate buyers / SBT vendors seem to forget that employees are now accustomed to using the internet for all their business applications, let alone travel. We are currently working on an app that combines the vertical search capability within a SBT corporate environment. I would wecome the opportunity to share that with you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The corporate travel industry needs to wake
    up and recognize how consumer online travel
    and general tech trends will impact the industry.

    ReplyDelete