Has anyone else noticed the words "retailing"
and "merchandising" being used more than ever before: travel
suppliers talking about themselves as retailers and about defining strategies
that enable them to upsell, just like a retail store might? It's not just talk
either, senior executives are arriving in travel: from Walmart to Alaska
Airlines, Best Buy to Sabre, NBCUniversal to CWT, and I'm sure there are more.
To understand this shift, I've been following the retail industry throughout
2016 and can share that every headline I read about the future of retailing
could apply to business travel, too. Needing to personalize the shopping
experience, wanting to use the latest digital advances to reach a broader
customer base, challenging the historical process and looking for new operating
models. Sound familiar?
Business is, after all, just business. Whether you have a
smartphone or a movie you're looking to sell, it's all product development,
marketing, distribution, sales and customer service. So why, therefore, do we
in business travel get so stuck in our ways and forget that the traveler is
first and foremost a consumer? I'm not talking about the consumerization of
business travel here. That's old news. Business-to-consumer travel brands
determining the user experience—that ship has sailed; the expectations are
already set. We should be looking to other industries to see what changes are
happening to anticipate our traveler (consumer) needs. Amazon creating a
supermarket where you no longer need to line up to pay is another disruption
we, as consumers, have forgotten we need—hands up anyone who would choose to
spend time standing in a line in a supermarket?—and yet this will fundamentally
change how consumers feel about payment. Why do I need a piece of plastic? Why
do I need to interact with anyone? This should all just happen and is just one
example.
The savvy travel supplier is recognizing these changes and
adapting the way it interacts with the traveler (consumer). The suppliers of
airline seats, hotel rooms, cars and trains have had to rethink their product
offerings and sales/distribution strategies, best surmised by an industry exec
in 2016 as: "We need to regain control of distribution; otherwise
distribution will take control of us." Some supplier moves have been
pretty blunt and involved some bold B2C moves, which behind the scenes
ultimately involve some form of intermediary. Others are taking their time to
build out a multichannel platform—in retailing terms, an omnichannel or
optichannel model—that enables a greater personalized, consumer-grade
experience and at the same time meets each supplier's own product
differentiation strategy, such as upselling and brand consistency.
Travel buyers have some important decisions to
make in 2017. How can they bring together these external dynamics with their
own company priorities to create travel strategy and supplier programs, which
in turn will drive the greatest value for their companies and the right-fit
experience for the travelers?