After slumping during the pandemic, business travel is picking up pace: it’s expected to hit pre-pandemic levels this year with spending on it slated to reach $1.4tn in 2024. But post-Covid, the landscape of corporate travel is changing, reflecting the evolving global economy, a diverse workforce and the growing importance attached to sustainability.
The cost of travel is rising and businesses seeking to balance budgets need to find flexible tools for managing business travel and the variables and unexpected events, such as flight delays, that come with it. New innovations are becoming even more influential in the decision-making processes, such as what form of meeting or collaboration justifies the need to travel in the post-pandemic era.
The whole sector is ripe for innovation and new technologies such as AI present a timely opportunity for companies to rethink their approach to business travel. Tim Lebel, Vice President and Head of Product for SAP Concur Spend Solutions joins me to discuss how AI is helping to streamline outdated travel processes and how important trust is when building AI platforms. Shelley Fletcher- Bryant, Vice President of travel consultancy firm, Advito, advocates for more sustainable travel practices in the travel sector and how AI can play it’s part in giving organisations more transparency when booking business travel. Theodora Lau, Author, Public Speaker, and founder of Unconventional Ventures offers her insight into trust of key travel data in the new AI world and the sustainability of AI systems themselves.
Sources: FT Resources, PWC, Fortune, BBC, Forbes, McKinsey & Co, Business Travel News Europe, Global Business Travel Association, BCD Travel, Accenture.
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