SINGAPORE, 12 March 2020: Millennial business travellers have a growing list of paint points and gripes with current digital offerings according to research from Travelport.
The technology company that serves the global travel industry said research suggests millennial (1) traveller are driving corporate travel towards a post-digital era in the Asia Pacific (APAC) as their exceptionally high use of digital channels is being met by mounting frustrations.
Around half, for example, are still left frustrated by companies not giving them access to their booking information on all of their mobile devices (53%), not using data to remember their preferences (45%) and not giving them the option of booking everything in one place (48%).
According to the study, more millennial business travellers in APAC use a mobile device when researching (68%) and booking (67%) a trip than in any other region worldwide.
Mobile device use is second highest in North America (64% and 55%, respectively) and lowest in Europe (54% and 45%, respectively). One third (36%) of millennial business travellers in APAC even now claim they use mobile devices to book and pay for ‘every trip’.
In addition, the research revealed that more millennial business travellers in APAC are turning to travel booking sites to help them discover ‘bleisure’ experiences (45%) than in any other region. Once again, North America (41%) ranks second, and use is lowest in Europe (26%).
Travelport’s group vice president and managing director of APACMEA, Mark Meehan said: “Millennial travellers in APAC are now heavily using digital channels in all stages of business travel. This high use, however, is being matched by increasing frustrations with existing offerings, which indicates corporate travel in the region is on the verge of leaving the digital age and entering the post-digital era2. In this new era, sellers of corporate travel need to use digital channels to deliver value in more modern and sophisticated ways. This could be by solving more complex problems, enhancing personalization or more proactively meeting millennials’ needs.”
1 Millennials are defined as those surveyed between the ages of 18 and 34
2 The notion of a post-digital era was recently addressed by Accenture. According to the company, digital is simply the price of admission for doing business — it is no longer a differentiation advantage. In the post-digital world, differentiation comes from applying digital in powerful new ways.
