Last week was a bit hectic because of our message about the conversion at HRG with the resolution of the region HRG Europe Central. Since no official press releases were issued, half the world has fallen on our blog post. This involved a lot of emails and telephone inquiries.
Now we focus on our projects again and watch what happens on the market around smartphone apps. During the last days almost simultaneously messages from BCD Travel and CWT about their smartphone tools arrived. While BCD now offers and application called “Trip Source, CWT promises new functionalities.
What can the modern business traveler expect from TMC apps? While earlier the functions were limited primarily to the function of a travel plan service, possibly complemented by a currency converter, weather information and route support, the benefits today are very diverse.
What developed positively:
- Automatic synchronization of the booked trip (flight , hotel, car rental)
- Management of personal data and automatic synchronization with the database
- Sharing of the travel plan with selected network (friends, work, colleagues, etc.)
- Mobile check-in
- Integration of personal travel data
- Consideration of travel policies
- Company-specific notifications and information
What is standard in some apps that are, programmed for large companies will now soon be incorporated in the versions for a broader range of customers – the booking functionality.
CWT announces mobile hotel bookings
The app CWT To Go from Carlson Wagonlit Travel finally offers the opportunity to make mobile hotel bookings. Similar to apps from TripIt, TripCase and others, CWT will allow Integration of booking data from external sources. Presumably this will also happens over the forwarding of email confirmations to a central platform. For now, the application is planned to be tested by employees as part of a pilot project. An extension to a few global CWT clients follows before the rollout will take place.
One of the reasons for the further development of “CWT To Go” can be found in a study conducted by Carlson Wagonlit Travel. It indicates that it is important for 54 percent of travelers and 65 percent of travel managers to be able to handle bookings on the go via smartphone.
This in America launched app comes on the European market for the first time with BCD.
BCD Travel now launches TripSource also in EMEA
The app Trip Source has already been available in North America for a while. Now it can also be downloaded and used in some countries in Europe. In addition to features already mentioned, the app waits with “fantastic” updates which will be published soon. We couldn’t find out what the updates will offer. Let’s get surprised!
A bit more specific is the announcement about the trip source application. The aim is to manually or automatically provide the user with business-related advices and well-timed personalized suggestions. The consumer will thus be better informed in order to make the right purchasing decisions and additionally can benefit from incentives and discounts.
Conclusion: In particular, the results of the CWT survey speak for themselves. It is expected that in the future the expectations of travelers and travel managers to the apps of TMCs will continue to rise. Functions for booking and rebooking of flights and rental cars are hopefully soon to come. (Technology should not be an obstacle, simply because it exists)
We are still waiting for the “all-in-one solution” and we’ll keep you informed about developments. Occasionally we will also test TMC apps on a larger scale for the industry publication “Business traveltip”.
What are your experiences with the TMC Apps from CWT, BCD, HRG, American Express and Egencia? Let us know about it.
Daniel Grenacher for travelBrain
