Direct feedback from frequent corporate travellers can be a powerful tool in the arsenal of a Travel Manager or Corporate Travel Procurement Manager in their efforts to achieve better compliance and engagement, and reduce the human cost of frequent travel.
In 2019, FCM Travel Solutions believes understanding traveller pain points will be a key way to influence corporate travellers to make better choices about their trips and increase the effectiveness of a corporate travel programme.
“The insights garnered from your frequent traveller can be used to tweak travel programmes. By encouraging your travellers to give feedback, you also show them care about service levels, want to offer more-personalised experiences and have their wellbeing at heart. Happy travellers are more productive, more engaged and more likely to comply with the company’s travel policy,” says FCM Travel Solutions South Africa GM Nicole Adonis.
Adonis and her team of travel experts will be placing continued focus in 2019 on the negative impact of travel friction, which occurs when business people are travelling too much or have poor travel experiences.
Main sources of travel friction, she says, include unclear travel programme policies, poor approval processes and travel policies that fail to factor in the human cost of travel or prioritise financial savings over traveller wellbeing.
“Companies should keep a look out for the warning signs among their most prolific travellers, which includes employee absence, poor staff retention and reluctance to travel, among others,” says Adonis.
A further focus area for FCM Travel Solutions in 2019 will be to help corporates understand the impact of Behavioural Economics on travel decision-making.
Combining insights from psychology, judgement, decision making and economics, the field of Behavioural Economics considers why individuals make purchasing decisions, what they will buy and how much they are willing to spend.
“By understanding Behavioural Economics, subtle changes to travel policies can be implemented to ‘nudge’ employees to behave and choose travel options that fit within the company’s travel policy,” explains Adonis.
“We’ve spent some time researching Behavioural Economics, travel friction and some of the other corporate travel trends we anticipate for 2019. Corporates who are interested in these can visit our website and read our research paper for additional insights,” concludes Adonis.