Will mobile bridge the business travel gap?

It appears that booking and managing travel through mobiles could help encourage business travellers to stick to travel policies, if two recent reports are to go by.

As reported by Travel Daily yesterday, 87% of companies have not tried to reign in travel that is booked direct and not compliant to their policy, despite the fact 62% were against the idea.

Now another report by PhoCusWright and Travelport has suggested that continued corporation cut-backs and a demand for more online bookings will change patterns and that mobile could perhaps be the bridge that makes it work.

This will predominantly be driven by the next influx of business travellers who are increasingly using mobiles in all aspects of their lives. Travelport’s mobile application has seen more downloads in the UK than other regions and as such bookings using the method are set to increase.

The ‘consumerisation’ of mobile apps means travellers are still able to book themselves but could come in the form of the travel management company that its employers uses. With the right tools and content, it could help to steer bookings in the right direction while not being seen to push.

“Online booking trends are significantly evolved, as is the use of mobile to ‘consumerise’ the business traveller experience. Travelport Mobile Agent has achieved more downloads in the UK than any other location, and low-cost carriers such as easyJet are now regularly booked alongside traditional scheduled carriers in the GDS, through Travelport Aggregated Shopping,” said Simon Ferguson, Travelport’s UK & Ireland regional director.

Sales in the managed European travel sector has increased 4.4% to EUR38.9 billion (US$49.8bn, GBP33.4bn) with online TMCs expecting to see a 16% rise in online bookings this year. Europe’s total travel sector currently sits at GBP187bn (US$278bn) a year and cold each GBP197bn (US$293bn)in 2014.