Exploring New Ways to Gain Biz Travelers’ Compliance

You can call it a buzzword; you can call it a bribe. But a new form of gamification, one that focuses on the data more than the prize, appears to be taking hold in the corporate travel sector.

The idea of using rewards to encourage travelers to comply with corporate policy seems to have stalled a bit, as TMCs and their clients struggle to find the right products.

Google and Concur last year were reportedly working together on a product to launch this summer have not yet come to fruition. The two declined to confirm whether they have something in development.

Meanwhile, companies like Orbitz and Carlson Wagonlit Travel are joining Atlas Travel and Travel and Transport in tweaking traditional gamification models and rolling them into data-reporting products.

Leaving out the prizes
Orbitz for Business is taking a slightly different tack from traditional gamification programs.

Rather than rewarding travelers for doing more than required to save the company money, it’s focusing on giving travelers information to encourage them to make the right choices.

Orbitz’s Prime Analytics solution allows companies to “establish goals beyond price” and identify ways travelers can go beyond just “doing the right thing,” said vice president of product strategy and development Anne Marie Razza.

The program tracks factors like when travelers take advantage of advanced purchasing, when they use preferred carriers, when they do a ticket exchange, and when they take the corporate negotiated rate at a hotel.

See for yourself
Up to now the system has delivered that information to management. But an upgrade currently in the works will push it in front of individual travelers, “giving them the ability to see how their decisions affect the company,” Razza said.

Orbitz plans to launch the product before the end of the year and to offer it to corporate customers at no additional cost.

 “At the end of the day, it’s about finding the right win for the company and the traveler,” said Razza.

CWT goes for super-compliance
Carlson Wagonlit Travel, meanwhile, said it still views gamification as “a significant trend for 2014.”

But it now envisions a refined version that goes beyond just giving out prizes to travelers who follow corporate policy.

“Super-compliance is new way to look at it,” said Joel Wartgow, senior director of CWT Solutions Group for the Americas.

“It’s not binary, not all black and white, but recognizing the different levels of compliance.”

For example, a traveler going to Chicago who has a choice of four or five preferred hotels within policy, CWT’s Traveler Gamification program can identify which property is the least costly, then recognize and reward travelers for choosing it.

The program offers various recognition elements that customers can deploy, such as virtual badges, leader boards and team competitions. Customers can offer physical rewards or just recognition to show that management notices the efforts travelers are making.

Pipeline of customers
“A pipeline of customers” is waiting for the product, Wartgow said. CWT is working on gamification programs with “smaller regional customers and some large global ones,” he added.

The Traveler Scorecard, a similar type of program, reports on booking activity and ranks travelers against each other.

It shows travelers how much they’ve actually saved and how much more they could have saved by making different choices. Frequent travelers using the program generated a 4% increase in savings, Wartgow said.

Love them or hate them, such programs are all about “engaging travelers in a more exciting way, giving them the travel policy in a game, and showing them what appropriate choices look like,” Wartgow said.

“It’s really hard to dispute the evidence of using these types of tactics to build loyalty,” he said. “All these programs have an impact on a company’s ability to control their travel spend.”

Not everyone wants in
Independent travel management consultants have a mixed reaction to gamification.

Like any travel program, game-like tactics are a better fit with some corporate cultures than with others, according to some TMCs.

“I’m not a big fan,” said Andy Menkes, chairman and CEO of Partnership Travel Consulting, LLC. “I think business travel is a serious business, and it’s a mistake to turn it into a game.”

Carol Salcito, president of Management Alternatives, Inc., noted that her travel career began at UTC, a government contractor, where rules were carefully spelled out and employees simply followed them.

“But if you can’t get senior management to give you its full support, gamification is a way to gain compliance,” she said.

“You have to look at the culture of the organization and the age of the travelers.”