ALEXANDRIA, Virginia—The World Enterprise Journey Affiliation (GBTA) and Cvent launched a brand new research titled, “The Future Is Now: Expertise Transformation in Company Journey.” In response to the research, 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 p.c of journey administration firm respondents, 74 p.c of suppliers, and 59 p.c of journey consumers usually suppose their group does a very good job with expertise, a chance exists in actively integrating superior applied sciences, corresponding to synthetic intelligence (AI) and blockchain, into their journey applications. As well as, whereas journey program spending on expertise is predicted to largely stay flat, most suppliers and TMC professionals say their firm is ramping up expertise funding within the 12 months forward. Nonetheless, lodging suppliers are significantly much less doubtless to take action than different forms of suppliers. The report emphasizes the necessity for all journey trade professionals to higher 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 features of our trade to larger providers, instruments, platforms, and achievements.”
Findings from the GBTA and Cvent report embody:
- AI and blockchain are high of thoughts. The company journey trade is more and more open to integrating AI and blockchain applied sciences to reinforce effectivity and traveler expertise. Three-quarters of consumers (75 p.c) are considering adopting an AI-powered journey program chatbot to mechanically reply questions particularly about their program. Half of consumers are considering providing blockchain-based reserving (51 p.c) or fee (49 p.c).
- Rising reliance on expertise is driving new roles. In response to respondents, a 3rd of journey applications (29 p.c) now have a full-time worker who focuses totally on tech-related obligations, which might embody sourcing new digital instruments, configuring reserving and expensing options, managing information assortment, or driving expertise transformation throughout the journey program. The position is barely extra prevalent in Europe, with 36 p.c of journey consumers saying their firm has one, versus 22 p.c of respondents in North America.
- Journey program expertise spend varies by area. On common, journey consumers estimate 18 p.c of their journey program’s total price range is spent on expertise. Regardless of total price range will increase, solely one-third (36 p.c) of journey consumers count on their expertise spending to develop this 12 months, with European applications main in tech funding. European consumers (43 p.c) are extra doubtless than their North American counterparts (30 p.c) to count on a rise in spending on expertise.
- Journey administration firms (TMCs) usually tend to improve expertise funding than suppliers and consumers. Most suppliers count on their firm’s spending on inside expertise (61 p.c) and traveler-facing expertise (56 p.c) will improve this 12 months. That is significantly decrease than the share of TMC respondents who count on their funding in inside expertise (83 p.c) or their traveler-facing expertise (79 p.c) to extend. Just one-third of purchaser journey applications (36 p.c) count on to extend spending on expertise within the coming 12 months.
- Lodge expertise adoption is blended. A couple of-third of respondents who work at lodging firms (37 p.c), corresponding to lodge properties or chains, say their firm’s use of expertise has room to enhance. That is increased than the variety of different journey provider respondents (10 p.c) who stated the identical.
- Inns that undertake expertise are glad. Inns generally use expertise platforms to simplify processes, market their property, and reply to Requests for Proposals (RFPs) from company clients. These embody a Property Administration System (95 p.c), a transient RFP platform (81 p.c), an event-focused gross sales, advertising and marketing, and RFP platform (75 p.c), room block administration software program (63 p.c), and occasion diagramming software program (53 p.c). Of the lodge respondents who use these platforms, at the least two-thirds are glad with every expertise answer.
“We’ve lengthy believed within the energy of expertise to attain extra and enhance how companies function, and the research 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 consumers and suppliers to actually embrace rising applied sciences in a significant means. At Cvent, we’re making it simpler to try this as we proceed to combine AI throughout our platform and we’re proud to associate with leaders like GBTA to speed up progress throughout the conferences, occasions, and hospitality sectors by the facility of those rising applied sciences.”
Information assortment occurred by way of a web-based survey of GBTA journey consumers, suppliers, and TMCs in North America and Europe from February 6-19, 2024, with 388 contributors finishing the survey.
