OBTs, AI and NDC will continue to dominate business travel landscape.
Demand for business travel will remain soft at the start of 2024, with many corporates still stipulating travel bans, but the industry will nevertheless reach pre-Covid levels by the end of the year, according to Chris Thelen CEO of global boutique TMC TakeTwo, and SME specialist Eton Travel Management.
2024 will also be a pivotal year for OBTs and digital solutions in terms of adapting to meet travel buyers’ need to access and book full travel content. Indeed Thelen believes that the industry will start to see a shift away from the OBT as the entry point for booking corporate travel and TMCs will increasingly deliver services directly to customers via channels such as MS Teams, Slack and mobile apps.
Chris Thelen CEO of global boutique TMC TakeTwo, and SME specialist Eton Travel Management.
Elections in the UK and US – two core markets for TakeTwo – could add to market uncertainty, but Thelen is confident that both TakeTwo and Eton Travel will experience another strong year of growth in 2024. “We are seeing genuine demand for our independent travel service solution from clients who are dissatisfied with the service levels they are getting from the large mega TMCs,” said Thelen. TakeTwo closed out 2023 having won US$30M in new business in the UK, US and Ireland, including clients in financial services, asset management, well known household brands, and a leading supermarket retailer. Eton Travel also retained all its SME clients throughout 2023. Both TakeTwo and Eton have seen major demand from clients for their meetings and events services.
Other industry trends that Chris Thelen expects to emerge in 2024 are:
- AI will no longer principally be used as a chatbot mechanism – there will increasingly be an opportunity for AI to be leveraged to provide contextualised delivery, value and personalisation of the travel transaction for all stakeholders (agent, traveller and travel manager).
- TMCs will recognise the need to reinvent the way corporate travel programmes are managed. There needs to be a shift from treating policy areas like sustainability, wellbeing, cost reduction, traveller experience and disruption, in isolation. Travel will begin to focus much more on justification for travel, wellbeing and demonstrating the value of travel and how that can be weaved into a dynamic travel programme.
- NDC and airline retailing will still dominate the business travel landscape in 2024, but it remains to be seen if this will be the year when the airlines finally enable NDC bookings to be fully-serviced in a TMC environment. It will be interesting to see if the airlines can improve their handling of NDC in the corporate market and treat the business travel community fairly.
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
