Sabre’s biannual mobile survey of business travellers has indicated that business travellers want local deals, navigational tools and transactional capabilities.

Published: 25 Aug 2011

Sabre’s biannual mobile survey of business travellers has indicated that business travellers want local deals, navigational tools and transactional capabilities.

“Our survey shows that business travel today is personal. Travellers want the same functionality and convenience from their business travel tools that they have in their daily lives. People use travel services on their smartphones everyday and for every trip – before, during and after they travel,” said Chris Kroeger, senior vice president of Sabre Travel Network.

“The corporate travel industry needs to keep pace with the services and apps that travellers can access in their personal life and incorporate those into the world of managed business travel,” added Kroeger.

Findings

According to the Sabre’s survey, 63 percent of business travellers want to receive destination specific offers from local businesses - an 85 percent increase from 2009 – and 47 percent of business travellers use their smartphone daily to view or receive advertisements, a 95 percent increase from 2009.

“One of the biggest trends we see in the survey data is travellers’ desire for local business information and offerings based on their location via their smartphone or tablet,” said Kroeger.

Consumers increasingly want to access navigational tools and maps on their mobile devices. According to the survey:

• 72 percent of business travellers are interested in ability to view hotels on a map, an increase of 26 percent from 2009.
• 43 percent of business travellers reported daily use of their smartphone to access navigation services.
• 71 percent want to receive driving directions to a specific location via their smartphone.

“Consumers already rely on their mobile devices to help them navigate their way through cities around the world,” Kroger said. “In the future, they’ll look for mobile services that are not only location-based but contextually-aware such as airport navigational tools with the ability to find in-airport businesses but also have deals and offers pushed to their smartphone.”

Sabre’s survey showed that nearly three-fourths of business travellers are interested in shopping and booking air options. More than two-thirds want to shop for and make hotel reservations via mobile devices and 66 percent of respondents reported interest in the ability to add a hotel reservation to an existing itinerary. However, the highest growth was seen in the ground category. Sixty-two percent of respondents are interested in booking rental cars via their smart phone, a 32 percent increase from 2009 and 60 percent of respondents want to shop for car rentals via their smartphone, a 33 percent increase.

“Today’s business travellers expect transactional capabilities from their mobile devices including buying air extras and in-flight amenities,” Kroeger said. “Tomorrow’s business travellers will move from physical passports, wallets and credit cards and will expect their mobile device to fill those needs as continued advancements in mobile payment, commerce and banking make it easier to electronically transact via mobile devices.”