ALEXANDRIA, Virginia—The World Enterprise Journey Affiliation (GBTA) and Cvent launched a brand new examine titled, “The Future Is Now: Know-how Transformation in Company Journey.” Based on the examine, the trade is poised to permit expertise to remodel and speed up enterprise journey.
Based mostly on a survey of enterprise journey professionals in North America and Europe, the report reveals that whereas 88 % of journey administration firm respondents, 74 % of suppliers, and 59 % of journey patrons typically assume their group does a very good job with expertise, a possibility exists in actively integrating superior applied sciences, reminiscent of synthetic intelligence (AI) and blockchain, into their journey packages. As well as, whereas journey program spending on expertise is anticipated to largely stay flat, most suppliers and TMC professionals say their firm is ramping up expertise funding within the yr forward. Nevertheless, lodging suppliers are significantly much less seemingly to take action than different forms of suppliers. The report emphasizes the necessity for all journey trade professionals to raised perceive and undertake superior applied sciences to stay aggressive.
“As each our on a regular basis {and professional} lives have ever-increasing touchpoints with expertise, it’s in parallel that we see the attain of the technological footprint within the enterprise journey trade,” stated Suzanne Neufang, CEO, GBTA. “The report offers a view to the potential for expertise to do extra, to additional allow and empower all facets of our trade to larger providers, instruments, platforms, and achievements.”
Findings from the GBTA and Cvent report embrace:
- AI and blockchain are high of thoughts. The company journey trade is more and more open to integrating AI and blockchain applied sciences to boost effectivity and traveler expertise. Three-quarters of patrons (75 %) are keen on adopting an AI-powered journey program chatbot to routinely reply questions particularly about their program. Half of patrons are keen on providing blockchain-based reserving (51 %) or cost (49 %).
- Rising reliance on expertise is driving new roles. Based on respondents, a 3rd of journey packages (29 %) now have a full-time worker who focuses totally on tech-related obligations, which might embrace sourcing new digital instruments, configuring reserving and expensing options, managing knowledge assortment, or driving expertise transformation throughout the journey program. The function is barely extra prevalent in Europe, with 36 % of journey patrons saying their firm has one, versus 22 % of respondents in North America.
- Journey program expertise spend varies by area. On common, journey patrons estimate 18 % of their journey program’s total finances is spent on expertise. Regardless of total finances will increase, solely one-third (36 %) of journey patrons anticipate their expertise spending to develop this yr, with European packages main in tech funding. European patrons (43 %) are extra seemingly than their North American counterparts (30 %) to anticipate a rise in spending on expertise.
- Journey administration corporations (TMCs) usually tend to enhance expertise funding than suppliers and patrons. Most suppliers anticipate their firm’s spending on inner expertise (61 %) and traveler-facing expertise (56 %) will enhance this yr. That is significantly decrease than the share of TMC respondents who anticipate their funding in inner expertise (83 %) or their traveler-facing expertise (79 %) to extend. Just one-third of purchaser journey packages (36 %) anticipate to extend spending on expertise within the coming yr.
- Resort expertise adoption is blended. Multiple-third of respondents who work at lodging corporations (37 %), reminiscent of resort properties or chains, say their firm’s use of expertise has room to enhance. That is larger than the variety of different journey provider respondents (10 %) who stated the identical.
- Inns that undertake expertise are happy. Inns generally use expertise platforms to simplify processes, market their property, and reply to Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from company prospects. These embrace a Property Administration System (95 %), a transient RFP platform (81 %), an event-focused gross sales, advertising and marketing, and RFP platform (75 %), room block administration software program (63 %), and occasion diagramming software program (53 %). Of the resort respondents who use these platforms, at the very least two-thirds are happy with every expertise resolution.
“We’ve got lengthy believed within the energy of expertise to attain extra and enhance how companies function, and the examine outcomes present that we aren’t alone in that perception,” stated Julie Haddix, senior director of selling at Cvent. “Whereas the enterprise journey trade acknowledges the significance of investing in expertise, there’s nonetheless a greenfield alternative for each patrons and suppliers to really embrace rising applied sciences in a significant manner. At Cvent, we’re making it simpler to do this as we proceed to combine AI throughout our platform and we’re proud to companion with leaders like GBTA to speed up progress throughout the conferences, occasions, and hospitality sectors via the ability of those rising applied sciences.”
Knowledge assortment occurred through an internet survey of GBTA journey patrons, suppliers, and TMCs in North America and Europe from February 6-19, 2024, with 388 members finishing the survey.
