Corporation which are focused on business travel productivity and cost saving techniques and opportunities are finding new ways to apply the emerging technologies so that the business traveler can concentrate on what matters most – their business. Travel Management Companies (TMCs) are also finding new ways to adopt their corporate self booking tools and expense management tools. Thus providing the best functionalities and state-of-the-art technology support which enables the business traveler to avoid the complexity of making travel arrangements and customize the corporate booking solutions integrating all elements of their global travel program like inclusion of travel policies, negotiated fare management, preferred suppliers selections and advanced business traveler profile management

Key success factors in business travel automation is highly dependent on techniques to offer best of the services for air, hotel and car services integration with the inclusion of upcoming next generation functionalities like rail integration, insurance and VAT reclaim integration, CO2 emission tracker with concept of greener travel, support to usage of mobility & management of ancillary fees. Though the basic requirements for corporation still remain the same like reduced transaction cost, improved policy compliance, and collection of management data for better-quality reporting and expense management

Apart from technological factors, the success for automation of corporate travel also depends upon the adoption rate. Level of satisfaction pertaining to the usage of corporate booking solution is extremely reliant and interrelated to the adoption level. Travel Management Companies success is dependent on how they handle the factors like corporates social structure and issues, travel policy and compliance, encouragement for senior management to buy-in, higher content choice from variety of sources like muti-GDS, LCC sites etc, pushing self service culture with support for clear and continual internal communication.

Future of Corporate Travel will depend on the consolidation of various services based on regional and multinational travel. Consolidation will bring all pieces of corporate travel together to achieve work efficiency at every stage of travel process. Tracking travel and making strong company policy with effective compliance will be next thing in future. Unbundling and management of ancillary fees will also be one area which will decide the effectiveness of travel management companies in coming future. Corporate Booking Tool will need specific augmentation in the future to facilitate the business traveler and managers to get better instantaneous communication using handheld wireless devices.

No corporations are alike but all share common challenges where experience helps. Different corporates give different priorities to various program drivers based on priorities to name few like spend transparency, policy governance, process efficiency, business traveler services, and total cost of ownership. Thus in this race of survival of fittest, the TMCs have to leverage the emerging technology trends for ever evolving business travel needs giving maximum ROI for the minimum spend from corporations. Truly said: “the journey is key; the destination is new all the time”.