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www.chamberstravel.com
The
likes of Uber and Airbnb are becoming
part of our everyday language as we
sample these new-fangled services in
our private lives. Known as the sharing
economy or collaborative consumption,
the jury’s out as to whether such suppliers
can seamlessly cross over into our
business lives and whether the corporate
community embraces them.
Capturing bookings is a basic
requirement and the sharing suppliers are
making progress in this area by integrating
with expense management tools.
The San Francisco-based Airbnb, for
example, has been making great strides in
trying to meet the needs of the corporate
market. It has integrated with International
SOS so all booking data gets uploaded
to them. It has partnered with Concur
so all Airbnb data flows into TripLink. It
has introduced 24/7 support in multiple
languages. It has set up a business travel
department in Berlin and has created a
business travel section on its website.
In terms of content, Airbnb is adding more
business-like apartments to its inventory
that offer wifi for example and only those
properties which can be rented to a single
user, ie with no sharers. Traveller safety
being high on the agenda for corporates, this
is a logical move for Airbnb. The company
reckons it has around 500,000 property
listings specifically for business travellers.
“Last year 10% of our business was in
business travel,” said Daniel Pourasghar of
Airbnb Business Development. That figure
is up from 8% in 2013. “We’re trying to
understand business travellers’ needs and
trying to get there.”
BREAKING
THE MOULD
The combination of mobile phone apps and virtual
payments has given rise to the tremendous
growth
in the sharing economy
but is it right for the
corporate sector, asks Gillian Upton
“the jury’s out as
to whether such
suppliers can
seamlessly cross
over into our
business lives ”
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GREAT
IDEAS
The company’s market valuation was
almost US$10billion in June 2014 and
along with its growing business has come
big business practices, such as the ‘price
suggestion engine’ – a yield management
system to you and me – to advise
homeowners what to charge. How that
will pan out in terms of price differential
with more conventional accommodation
suppliers remains to be seen.
In Airbnb’s favour is the understanding
that apartments can be more cost-effective
for travellers than hotels – particularly for
longer stays and relocations, and it is this
same argument it is using to persuade
corporates to use them.
The fledgling apartments sector spent
years driving home this message to the
corporate community and as a result,
apartments are a regular part of any
corporates’ managed travel programme.
Travellers prefer the more home-like
environment, and the greater creature
comforts that come with it, such as the use
of a kitchen. Very often, apartments can
be in closer proximity to where travellers
want to be. They also work well for a group
booking say, for a team meeting.
However, getting your traveller/s to stay
in a serviced apartment run by a serviced
apartment provider is one thing, and
getting one or more to stay in someone’s
private home is another.
A ratings procedure does allow
transparency as bookers can check all
reviews for each property. In addition,
US$1m liability insurance cover is standard
among sharing suppliers.
Like Airbnb, Uber’s mobile app has seen
DID
YOU
KNOW?
...that
2.5m TB of Big Data
is created each day by 3bn people.
The opportunity is personaliation, says Amadeus.