A part of the Expedia family, Egencia provides services in 66 countries, putting travellers at the heart of business travel. Amit Arora, MD-India, Egencia Travel India shares how his company is continuously supporting travellers with engaging and effective solutions
What services are you offering to the Indian corporate traveller, and how does it simplify the whole process for them?
Egencia makes business travel better. Our easy-to-use online booking tool makes even the most complex travel programmes easy to manage across almost any device. Being a member of the Expedia family, we get access to superior supplier content, both domestically in India and abroad. And because we operate our own single platform technology, based on Expedia, we can provide the same great experience found in consumer products that travellers use every day, such as Uber and Google maps, integrated directly into the Egencia app. Adoption is natural when you have a simple solution that meets the needs of everyone – traveller, arrangers and agents. Egencia connects everything your travel programme needs – content, technology, service and reporting – in one place.
What are the cost advantages for your corporate client?
Travel management requires a balanced approach to optimise savings and productivity, manage quality, and minimise risk for business travellers. Being part of the Expedia family does mean that our customers get all the benefits of a TMC plus access to Expedia, the largest online travel database with over 350,000 hotels and over 475 airlines. We can provide clients with money-saving alternatives, special promotions and exclusive rates for travel in both India and internationally. No matter the rate selected, from Expedia, Egencia business rates or negotiated rates, the transparency gives travellers plenty of choices while keeping them in budget and policy.
Is travel risk management a part of your product offerings for the India market? What is the awareness level regarding this among Indian companies?
Employees are the most valuable part of any organisation, and that’s why we provide risk management tools. For us, risk management starts before travellers begin searching for a trip. By having a clear travel programme, companies can maximise security, such as limiting the number of travellers on the same flight or adding custom security messages. In the event of disruption or unplanned events or emergencies, we send real-time alerts to travellers, arrangers and travel managers. And travel managers can track employees en route using Egencia reporting tools to identify who is travelling, their location and their itineraries.
How are you leveraging your existing global client relationships in this market?
Our corporate clients range from global multinationals to small to medium enterprises. Across the world from Denmark to Hong Kong, from Paris to Bengaluru, our customers experience the same world class technology backed by consistency of customer service with local expertise. Our success locally is a proof of concept to potential global customers and to the rest of the world that the model of technologically driven customer service can work in India.
What, according to you, are the most interesting upcoming trends in the business travel segment?
Certainly providing a seamless, consumer like experience for the business traveller wherever they are in the world, and across any device from tablet to desktop to mobile to wearables, is a continuing trend for us. Utilising apps now is not only for checking your itinerary but to shop and book travel or for directions using a terminal map to help you arrive at your gate. And from our end to provide alerts when something changes along with next steps to speak with our customer support service available anywhere in the world. And with a lens to the emerging technologies of the near future, artificial intelligence (AI), voice recognition, machine and deep learning have the potential to personalise the traveller’s experience and return valuable knowledge and time to travel managers.
Expedia invested US$ 1.2 billion in technology in 2016 and Egencia benefits from this investment in emerging tech.
Any other important factor you would like to highlight.
Expense management continues to be a pain point for most of our customers, travel managers and travelers alike. Egencia is revolutionising expense with open technology and a consumer – grade user experience. We provide a fully integrated travel and open platform expense management solution to create an end to end experience that captures booking, fulfilment and expense.