Travel buyers are always working to improve the travel experience for their organisations and employees, but a new study published today by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) in collaboration with BCD Travel, “Quality Management in Business Travel 2.0,” finds that the metrics best positioned to evaluate the success of the holistic travel experience remain misunderstood and, as a result, crucially underutilised.
Travel buyers have laid the groundwork for measuring programme success, focusing on key financial metrics: Spend and savings continues to be the most popular form of measurement, with 91% of travel buyers using this data to inform their travel programmes. Buyers are also consistently keeping track of booking statistics (84%).
But travel buyers want a more holistic view of their programmes. They are aligned on the data they want to use to measure the success of their programmes, with 52% saying measuring factors like trip success and traveller friction can help their organisation better understand traveller needs, as well as improve services (47%) and policy compliance (37%).
“Unlike traditional, financial measurements, these types of metrics pose a unique challenge for travel buyers – they are inherently subjective to the traveller and there isn’t a single, industry-wide definition for them,” said Miriam Moscovici, Senior Director, Research & Innovation at BCD Travel.
“This study creates a unique opportunity for the industry to come together and transform the way we measure the quality of travel programmes,” added Leigh Bochicchio, executive director, ACTE. “Creating a well-framed rubric for gathering objective and subjective data will provide a more balanced view of the value and success of a corporate travel programme – and the corporate travel manager.”
Barriers to Change Persist
Travel buyers suggest a lack of reliable data is a key obstacle to better quality measurement in business travel. Almost two-thirds (62%) of respondents find that many important metrics are difficult to measure accurately: Available data can be fragmented (29%) and unreliable (21%). As a result, buyers are left having to draw conclusions from incomplete data sets, creating a greater margin of error when making changes to the travel programme.
However, when it comes to more nebulous – albeit, possibly better – measurements like trip success, travel buyers currently rely on self-reported traveller feedback. Unfortunately, respondents find this method of data collection particularly unreliable, with 40% saying it can be misleading, and 33% saying they tend to receive a low response rate to requests for traveller feedback.
Overall, this study has found that travel managers are deeply committed to improving their travel programmes, and generally agree on where they want to go – but they still need help on how to get there. The key to overcoming barriers to change, then, is collaboration and consensus-building – something this study has already advanced.
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