Egencia leaders answer key questions on business travel now, and post COVID-19

With the state of travel changing so quickly, it's no surprise that travel buyers and corporate travel managers have questions about how this rapidly evolving situation impacts them. So our Egencia leaders took to their keyboards to answer questions from travel managers in the Egencia Connect Community.

Let’s dig into the most popular questions!

How is Egencia supporting corporate travel managers through COVID-19?

We’re listening to our customers, communicating quickly across all channels and where needed.  Because our Egencia platform is built in house, we can move fast to deliver new capabilities within hours or days in times like this. A few examples:

• Duty of Care: Travel managers need to understand where their travellers are scheduled to be and where they’ve been, functionality already provided by Egencia Traveler Tracker but quickly enhanced during the first days of this crisis. We also created a COVID-19 travel report in the Egencia Analytics Studio in response to the evolving status of business trips. This report provides travel managers with the ability to quickly check the status of hotel and air bookings.
• Fast-tracking Support: In addition to our pre-existing travel alerts, we published fast tutorials to remind travellers how easy it was to cancel in our app where appropriate, and we worked around the clock to regularly update the Egencia Help Centre including regular updates on flexible rebooking and cancellation policies – even as they change frequently.
• 24/7/365 Global Coverage: At Egencia, we support customers in more than 60 countries. We have global support on the ground with our 3,000-strong force of travel consultants that speak over 30 languages and provide real-time support for travellers 24/7/365. Customers tell us the way Egencia has responded to the crisis has resonated very positively, but we know we can always do more and quicker. Our teams work across global time zones, so our support and innovation never stops.

How is Egencia preparing to help customers post COVID-19?

We’re helping customers to strengthen and optimise their travel programmes now, in preparation for when travel restrictions ease. Examples of optimisation include promoting online and mobile app adoption with travellers for cost efficiencies and safety via regular travel alerts, modifying travel policy to maximise safety of travellers and value of each trip taken, and consolidating to a single travel management company to track travellers globally and ensure 24/7/365 support.

We're continuing to strengthen our traveler risk management tools and leverage the best technology capabilities for our customers. Owning our own technology means we can delivery tech-driven solutions that are scalable across the organization such as enabling more self-service solutions so issues can be resolved faster.

What are your predictions for the future of business travel?

There will be a new “normal” for business travel. In China, we're seeing that initial recovery is likely in domestic travel, hotels, and in government, health care, and consulting sectors. We predict business travel will bounce back first, allowing companies to reconnect with customers, suppliers and partners. Travellers are prepared to get back on the road, but will want peace of mind that they have support.

See the full Q&As in the Egencia Connect online community. Current customers can join here.

And coming soon? Our community is getting supercharged.