Sharing Economy Opens New Possibilities for Business Travel
Photo Credit: An Uber ride in Bogota, Colombia. Wikimedia Commons / Alexander Torrenegra
Skift Take
As sharing economy services provide stronger data tools to corporate agencies, the role of Uber and Airbnb will expand in corporate travel policies.
For many business travelers, services like Airbnb and Uber offer more personalized service and flexibility than their current corporate travel policy offers.
This leads them to book outside their policy and leave their company's travel managers to piece together their expenses.
The country's biggest corporate travel agencies say better data from sharing economy services will soon lead large companies to adopt, and in many cases encourage, their use.
"It's just become a part of the fabric of how people travel," said April Bridgeman, managing director at Advito and senior vice president at BCD Travel.
Ride-sharing and accommodations are the sectors under the most scrutiny right now by travel managers, as employees embrace the services they use as consumers in their lives as business travelers.
Airbnb and Uber both launched dedicated business travel sections last year, with Airbnb reporting 700 percent growth from the more than 250 companies that signed up.
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