Big Changes on the Horizon

One critical skill a travel manager can possess is how to distinguish effective current innovation from the promise of future innovation. That skill is only going to grow more important as the industry turns a calendar page into 2024—with both established suppliers and managed travel industry startups introducing new products, platforms and services powered by the likes of New Distribution Capability, generative artificial intelligence, blockchain and other emerging technologies. 

In reporting for this special BTN editorial series on innovation, one tech industry travel buyer summed up the current mood of the managed travel industry: 

“2023 and 2024 will be noted as milestone years where we saw major industry paradigm shifts. We’ll see them in electronic ticketing, online booking tools and other self-service types of tools. We’ll be replacing legacy systems, processes and technologies with a new level of tech that will bring [us] new services from suppliers, along with new quantities of data and better-quality data that we have never had before.”  

Travel buyers will need to perform shrewd assessments of new tech features and capabilities, security and data governance and, of course, the user experience before buying into the sales pitch for new tools. (They should lean on IT teams for help.) And despite challenges in terms of funding and implementation, a plurality of travel buyers have said they are looking to invest in more innovative travel solutions that will drive better cost-saving opportunities and traveler experience outcomes. 

An October Global Business Travel Association survey showed NDC would be the primary focus for technology investment in 2024, largely in the hands of intermediaries and suppliers, both of which were included in GBTA’s respondent pool. Buyers will be looking at those solutions critically, and 71 percent say they still need to have more education on what NDC stands to accomplish (see page 5). Progress with AI is also on the horizon, with about a third of all GBTA survey respondents excited about the prospects but with another third feeling tentative about its impact. Either way, it’s coming, and buyers again will need to prepare (see page 14). Blockchain technology may have felt stagnant during the pandemic, given the lack of travel data coming through systems. With the rebound of business travel—which the GBTA poll put at about 75 percent of pre-pandemic volume—that data is back on track and there will be new ways for travel managers to organize, secure and interrogate it (see page 18). Secure blockchain ledgers may also hold keys to traveler experience and personalization elements for companies that want to dig deep into the possibilities of self-sovereign identity (see page 23).

However travel managers choose to approach innovation in the coming months, BTN is always at hand to help inform and educate.