Img source: nextavenue.org

How Millennials and Female Travelers are Reshaping Corporate Travel

/

Despite all the advancement in technology, business travel is still an integral part of a business. Globalization has further fueled this trend. If your business expands beyond your country, you might have to travel for corporate purposes.

With more women and millennials joining the workforce every year, we are seeing companies change their travel policies to cater to the travel needs of women and millennial business travelers. According to a report by Upside Travel Company, which runs a business travel booking website, the number of female and millennial business travelers are growing at a rapid pace. Even though men still dominate the corporate travel scene but the future looks bright for millennials and women.

Keep on reading to learn more about how millennials and women corporate travelers will transform the business travel industry.

1. Millennials Will Take Control

Img source: hozting.id

Millennials are no longer younger anymore. They are now occupying the top-level executive positions in most companies. This trend will continue as old employees retire and make way for the younger generation to fill in those gaps at the workplace. Reflecting on this situation, Jon Ellenthal, co-founder of Upside said, “Older men are moving away from a position of dominance.” He also predicted that “By 2020, more than 50% of business travelers will be classified as millennials.

2. Women Traveling for Corporate Purposes

Another group of travelers that is growing fast is women. They now make up almost half of the business travelers. What’s more, they are much younger their male counterpart. Unlike their male peers, they demand more information about the destinations and cities they are traveling to.  They shop around for different booking options before selecting one. They compare prices and are more demanding. You will see them dissatisfied even with the options they have chosen. Nothing makes them angrier than poor customer service. So, if you are a travel agency who are targeting business travelers, you should make sure you cater to the demands of female business travelers in order to succeed in the future.

3. Pleasure and Business Go Hand in Hand

Img source: allprotravelgear.com

The days when business trips used to be strictly business are long gone. Today, business trips are not restricted to meetings, presentations and speaking at conferences. It goes well beyond that. More and more corporate travelers are preferring to either extend their business trip by a couple of days to add more leisure activities or they try to schedule some days for leisure activities in the middle of their business trip. Hire a cheap yacht rental to explore Dubai from a different perspective.

Jay Walker, CEO of Upside and Founder of Priceline, “Because of Yelp and TripAdvisor, you can’t hide if you’re not a good business person. There’s been a shift in the standards we expect.” With more and more travel businesses harnessing the power of social media to deliver real-time feedback, business travelers are expecting much more from travel businesses then they use to ever before. This has made it more challenging for travel agencies to fulfill the demands of business travelers.

4. Personalized Experience

Whether you are male or female, young or old, experienced or newbie, your needs might differ from one another. This means that there is no one size fits all formula in business travel. Despite their varying needs, most business travelers share one thing in common. They all demand personalized travel experiences. If you fail to deliver a personalized travel experience that fulfills their travel needs, your business travel company will not flourish. It is important for travel agencies to empower business travelers and offer them the options they are looking for to win them over. If you want to go on a desert safari & dhow cruise in marina make sure you check out the best desert safari dhow cruise marina rates.

Jay Walker, CEO of Upside and founder of Priceline said: “In the past, companies had very rigid guidelines for employee travel, but now we can see employees pushing back and asking for a budget, they’re saying ‘maybe I’ll book an Airbnb instead of a hotel, they’re saying ‘just tell me how much I need to spend, and I’ll decide how to spend it.”

Conclusion

Img source: royalfashionist.com

As old age employee vacates their positions, more females and millennials will fill those spots. With more millennials and females in top positions, we will see a paradigm shift in business travel industry as more travel companies look to offer services that cater to the needs and demands of such group of travelers. The focus will slowly shift from male business travelers to other groups as their number continues to increase.

How will millennials and women business travelers transform the business travel industry? Speak your mind!

Peter is a freelance writer with more than eight years of experience covering topics in politics. He was one of the guys that were here when the foreignspolicyi.org started.