What is the worth of travel? Amadeus is on a quest to help corporations answer this question
Did you know that companies spend around 10% of their revenue on corporate travel? At a time when the cost of everything has increased, with sustainability at the forefront of everybody’s minds, and technology making it easier than ever to connect online, many business travelers are now rightfully asking themselves whether they really need to attend meetings in-person.
Business is better in real life
In the digital world which has become our new norm, it is very easy to forget just how valuable human connections are. Despite the best video conferencing technology, it is impossible to replicate the value of face-to-face meetings which are an inherent part of business, necessary for building trust, connections, relationships with customers, as well as in many cases accelerating decisions.
In my own experience, teams coming together for face-to-face conversation and interaction creates a much more effective and efficient means of getting things done, on time and with focus.
Let’s talk costs
Travel does have a cost, however, both direct and indirect. The direct cost of flights and hotels, management fees and technology costs all add up. The cost of time is also a factor: currently employees are spending up to 9% of their working hours switching between workspace applications, among which apps and tools to manage their travel and expense. There are environmental considerations to take into account, commercial air travel accounts for at least 2% of global carbon emissions.
And let’s not forget the impact on employee wellbeing: a recent BCD survey found lack of exercise while on business trips is among travelers’ major concerns, as reported by 26% of respondents, maybe more concerning is that only a quarter of business travelers manage to sleep well regularly when traveling.
Given all this, it would appear good business sense for any company to ask themselves the question: what is travel really worth to a corporation?
To travel or not to travel?
Fortunately, the answers to these questions aren’t as ambiguous as one might think. Amadeus for one is helping corporations answer them with more clarity withCytric Easy by Amadeus, a transformative new travel and collaboration tool, embedded in Microsoft Teams.
Cytric Easy is built to enhance collaboration through the trip planning process and to offer support for more informed decisions on the worth of each travel decision: before, during, and after. Going beyond the booking, Cytric Easy considers the value potential of each travel moment and enables those travelling and those not to collaborate in new unique ways.
From the decision to travel at all and throughout the trip process, Cytric Easy maximizes the micro-collaboration moments through unique functionalities in MS Teams, such as ShareMyTrip to save on time and productivity, MatchMyTrip to enhance collaboration between those travelling, ShareMyTransfer from the airport or rail station which addresses sustainability and savings goals, as well as creating ad-hoc event channels to share info and coordinate trips.
For teams and businesses, these are the game-changing tools which enable more cost-efficient, policy-compliant, and purposeful trips, every time.
So, what makes travel worth it?
Is it finding the best fares and options for hotel and transportation? Is it booking more sustainable travel options? Is it cultural and creative connection sparked by face-to-face collaboration? Business travel is a means for people to work better together! Therefore, from better collaboration, to connection, and clear insights, all of these micro moments are taken into consideration to help CEOs, CHROs, CFOs, CIOs and travel managers measure the worth of travel with Cytric Easy.
For companies’ travel stakeholders who believe ease should be a given of any business platform, Cytric Easy is the only travel and expense solution in the market that makes every trip worth it.
To learn more, visit https://cytric.amadeus.com/en
