“I come to events to shop”: BCD’s Miriam Moscovici
Miriam Moscovici, vice president of research and partnerships for BCD Travel, is a big believer in staying abreast of startups, which is why she is a frequent attendee of conferences such as Phocuswright and WiT.
Miriam Moscovici: “Startups need to first establish credibility before they start saying, we want to change everything.”
“This is where you learn about the new things going on,” she said on the sidelines of Phocuswright Europe. “I basically come to these events to shop and then I introduce them to the industry.”
She recalled the first time Uber presented at a GBTA (Global Business Travel Association) event. “There was outrage, how dare this new startup come along and challenge everything,” she said. “At the same time, startups need to first establish credibility before they start saying, we want to change everything.”
Well, with the disruption going on in corporate travel, this need to connect startup innovation with the corporate travel world has become even more critical. The acceleration around NDC adoption by airlines – American Airlines at the forefront, and led by Singapore Airlines in Asia – has spurred travel management companies into action, to find solutions to help ease the transition for their customers, or else risk being sidelined.
The whole industry is in a state of flux, not only because of NDC acceleration, but also due to the pandemic which has changed the way corporates think of their travel programmes.
While she called it “romantic”, being back at travel conferences and seeing friends and business partners again, the truth is “the pandemic refocused executive leadership at businesses to ask, what is the ROI of business travel. We haven’t travelled for two years but our earnings is great. What is the need for business travel?
“Pressures on sustainability have exacerbated that. How can we justify that? Yet, there is a backlash. People want to visit their customers, have dinner, thank them, look them in the eye.”
She added, “There is a new complexion to the type of business travel we are buying. Meetings and conferences are booming – large conferences to retreats to bring remote workers together – the concept of business meetings has changed. I am surprised virtual conferences haven’t endured.”
She’s pleased about that as she sees meetings and conferences as a “peace business”. “We bring people together, we bring Joe and Ahmad to trade rice, perhaps for generations”.
Having said that, she said companies have to adapt to changing times. “It’s quite challenging. We give travellers the edge they think they have when it comes to working with TMCs. This means controlling the flow of information.
“There’s a permanent anxiety that travellers are living with now – things are not as predictable as they were. First class and business cabins used to be a sacred space, as were airline lounges. Five star hotels have issues with manpower capacity. These spaces are not so sacred now – that’s our big challenge, to make this permanent anxiety go away.”
And then of course, there’s also anxiety within travel management companies on how this whole NDC momentum will play out and what’s their role within a highly dynamic eco-system?
Commenting on American Airlines’ moves to “offer its best available third-party public channel content only through NDC connections” and reorganise its sales force to appeal directly to the traveller, and downplay third party sellers, Moscovici said, “Time will tell. It is a public company and we will be able to see their financial reports if their plan will work. It’s shown by the choices they are making, what’s critical to their success.”
On the part of BCD, she said, “We are investing in the tech and seeing what’s out there, what startups there are that we can work with.”
Specifically, she said, she was looking at ChatGPT startups that can turbo charge BCD’s 8,000 human travel agents. “It is hard to find agents these days. Some people want to try and automate and create synthetic agents. We are looking for startups that can take the easy work from agents so they can focus on high demanding requests. We’ve seen many blossoming of AI in the last 10 years, but now the AI seems to be smart enough.”
She’s keeping an eye on startups, new and established (such as Tripbam, Yapta and Fairfly), that “offer hotel/air reshopping and booking technology that allows corporate customers to purchase something and they reshop the itinerary regularly to catch and drops in fares/rates – then processes the rebooking automatically to save the client money”.
Moscovici has been in the corporate travel space since the late 90s. Her first job was working on Deloitte’s corporate travel programme. “Deloitte ran the third largest programme, after IBM and Amazon. I worked on the consolidation – 143 travel agencies into one programme, from no airline contracts to six huge airline contracts, spending $400m a year. I travelled to every office, pulling agents out of office and putting them in one contact office. We implemented an online booking tool for the first time.”
The most dramatic shift she’s seen in the business has been the move to self-service and tech tools. “Not too long ago, every single booking started with a travel agent. Now it’s about automation and self-service.”
Which is why since she joined BCD in 2007, she’s made it her mission to find startups. In her new role as vice president, research and partnerships, she is responsible for the BCD marketplace “which connects travel technology innovators with BCD Travel clients around the world. BCD Travel clients are plugged in and know their priorities. Savings, security, sustainability and traveler experience are top of mind for them right now.”
