Corporate travel technology integrations are no longer one-size-fits-all. How a booking tool integrates content will impact your Travelers’ behavior and your organization’s bottom line.
With the continual adoption of New Distribution Capability (NDC), you can no longer safely assume that your corporate travel content is coming directly from traditional GDS channels. Multiple content sources are currently at play, and your corporate travel content strategy will need to adapt accordingly. The way in which booking tools source and integrate content directly impacts your travel costs, Travelers’ choices, compliance and more.
Keeping up to date on these changes in corporate travel technology integrations and their continual evolution can ensure you make the best decisions for your teams long term.
Key Takeaways
- Corporate travel booking tools utilize a range of travel content from myriad sources.
- You need a corporate travel content strategy to ensure Traveler compliance and satisfaction.
- The best corporate travel technology integrations offer flexibility and choice.
How Travel Content is Changing
As Business Travel News explains, historically, corporate travel content was delivered via EDIFACT GDS channels.
However, airlines and other suppliers are increasingly distributing content through NDC and direct integrations. NDC allows for direct bookings and bookings outside of EDIFACT, which means more fare options and greater personalization. In some cases, airlines are making certain offers and features only available through those NDC channels, versus GDS.
All this means that, when you’re looking at direct supplier content, you may be looking at a range of different types of content. That content may or may not include NDC fares. In some cases, direct supplier content may also include branded fares or continuous pricing.
A modern travel booking platform will integrate multiple such content streams into a single shopping experience.
Why This Matters—Service Quality and Policy Compliance
But why should you, as a Travel Manager choosing your booking technology even care about this? Well, while you may not care all that much about the behind-the-scenes technology ins and outs, you do care about what that technology helps you accomplish.
Corporate booking tool content influences which travel options your Travelers can see and access, what they can book, whether they can change their bookings, whether cancelled bookings can be refunded and how easily booking issues can be resolved.
As such, ultimately, corporate travel technology integrations are going to end up impacting, at least to some degree, how happy your Travelers are with their booking experiences and whether or not they remain compliant. The more inflexible, complex and frustrating the process—such as if content sources are fragmented rather than seamlessly streamlined and integrated—the less satisfied and thus less compliant the Traveler.
Accordingly, when choosing a booking tool, look at more than just pricing. Consider the tool’s travel technology integrations, and servicing maturity and quality as well. A top-tier tool will be able to support changes, refunds, exchanges and disruptions across different content types with ease.
Benefits of Booking Tools with Strong Integrations
Booking tools with strong corporate travel technology integrations will deliver a wealth of benefits to both you as a Travel Manager and your Travelers—especially when it comes to airfare.
Travelers will enjoy airline content integrations that provide wider access to airline offers. Meanwhile, they’ll be able to more accurately compare real-time, real-world fares (making for budget savings on your end). Plus, they’ll be able to view ancillaries and bundles that may have been previously unavailable via non-NDC channels. The airline can offer more to your Travelers and Travelers gain access to everything they need for a successful trip.
Risks of Limited or Fragmented Integrations
On the opposite end of the spectrum, more limited or fragmented travel booking tool integrations come with risks and downsides.
Oftentimes, the content is limited or even outdated. This can lead to Travelers looking for more or better options outside of the mandated travel booking tool. When Travelers find those better options, they may very well book them, regardless of non-compliance. This leads to tension within the travel policy and more Traveler frustration.
Even if Travelers do not end up booking elsewhere, they may still experience a great degree of frustration when encountering poor or limited service.
You have to keep in mind that your Travelers are comparing their experience with corporate travel booking tools to their experience with personal travel booking tools. If they find that the former is less user-friendly than the latter, they’re more likely to be dissatisfied. They know better options exist elsewhere. In contrast, if they can find relevant, personalized or competitive offers right in their corporate travel booking tool, they’re more likely to stay in-program and remain satisfied.
What’s True “Right Now” About Adoption
With NDC-empowered booking tools becoming more popular, NDC and corporate travel are firmly linked, but you won’t see the same integrations everywhere.
While NDC and direct integrations are expanding, they’re expanding unevenly. Currently, not every booking tool you come across during your search will support the same content types or workflows. As such, you’ll see differences in shopping display, change and exchange capabilities and post-booking servicing maturity, among other differences.
It’s vital that you choose a technology provider that is fully transparent regarding the type of experience you and your Travelers can expect now, as well as in the future, as integrations evolve.
What Travel Managers Should Evaluate When Choosing Technology
Choosing a booking technology is a strategic decision rather than a mere interface choice. As such, as you shop around for a travel technology provider, ask the following questions:
- Which direct supplier connections are supported today?
- How is NDC content displayed alongside other sources?
- What servicing actions are supported (changes, refunds, exchanges)?
- How quickly are new airline capabilities adopted?
- How are multiple content sources normalized into one workflow?
The provider’s answers will reveal key details that will clue you into how their technology integrations will impact your service, policy compliance and Traveler satisfaction.
For example, Teal, powered by Spotnana, launched last year by JTB Business Travel, offers multi-source and direct supplier content for corporate travel, for a unified shopping and servicing experience. Additionally, Travelers can easily book, modify and cancel trips within Teal, while Travel Managers enjoy tools designed for policy management and data tracking.
Ultimately, comparing and contrasting details such as these—from any provider—will inform your final, strategic decision surrounding choosing the right booking technology for your teams.
Northstar Travel Group is a JTB Corp company. JTB Business Travel may reference reporting or research published by Northstar; however, all commentary and recommendations in this article are independently developed.
