Corporate travel is on the rise, and with annual global business travel spend to reach a record US$1.2 trillion this year, as projected by the Global Business Travel Association, travel managers are continuously looking for new ways to reduce costs.
To get a full picture of travel patterns, businesses may have to sift through data silos from travel agencies, cards, expense systems and suppliers for end-to-end visibility of spend and compliance across all travel subcategories – usually undertaken in a historical view rather than in real time.
To make it easier for businesses and travel managers to organise corporate travel spend Travelport, and multinational technology company, IBM, have teamed up to launch “an industry-first AI platform” – IBM Travel Manager.
Delivered via the IBM Cloud the solution uses IBM Watson capabilities to intelligently track, manage, predict and analyse travel costs in one place.
Utilising AI, the platform provides cognitive computing, predictive data analytics using “what-if” type scenarios and integrated travel and expense data to help businesses optimise travel programmes, control spend and enhance the end- traveller experience, said Travelport in a statement.
IBM Travel Manager uses IBM Watson capabilities to manage travel costs. (Image credit: IBM Watson)
It has an interactive and intuitive dashboard that offers end-to-end visibility of travel spending, the ability to create alerts and notifications, predictive and pre-defined spending trend analysis, and natural language understanding to analyse text and uncover insights from structured and unstructured data.
According to the travel commerce platform, the product “is expected to be commercially available to customers globally” through both its platform and IBM. It will enter the market with a “limited commercial release” later this year, and a “controlled commercial release” in early 2019. It is targeted to be sold directly to corporate travel customers.
Fiona Shanley, Travelport’s chief customer and marketing officer, said IBM Travel Manager, with data from the company, is unlike any current traditional travel spend reporting solution.
“While other solutions only provide a fragmented historical picture, IBM Travel Manager combines and normalises data from all key sources, allowing for more robust insights and benchmarking than other reporting solutions.”
Elizabeth Pollock, IBM industry client leader for travel & transportation, added the two partners are using the power of AI to unlock previously unavailable data insights from multiple internal and external data sources.
“Travel managers can use this information to proactively drive improved supplier negotiations via real time and holistic data, enable budget holders to understand and change spending patterns, and improve travel policy compliance monitoring.”
• Featured image credit: metamorworks/iStock-Getty Images)
