Interview: Filling the Vast Innovation Gap in Corporate Travel

New ideas shake up the leisure travel world at a dizzying pace, but innovation moves more slowly in the corporate travel. To find out how travel management companies are adapting to their clients' needs — and the technology that travelers are already using — Skift is talking to CEOs about the trends that are reshaping their industry. Our first discussion is with Mike Cameron, CEO of Salt Lake City-based Christopherson Business Travel, which booked more than $550 million in travel in 2015 for nearly 1,000 companies and organizations. Cameron said the company is investing significantly in developing new technology for clients, including two he highlighted: Travel Approval sends itineraries to travelers and their managers for approval or modification, annd Hotel Attachment identifies itineraries without hotel reservations and allows customers to either book a hotel, attach an outside reservation, or waive the need to book lodging. The company's transactions are up 12 percent in the first two months of the year, and total bookings have increased 16 percent. Cameron said hotel bookings helped drive that increase, in part because of the new technology. "Things are going to become more digital, more self-serve, and we have to be part of that trend and have to change with it," he said. Skift: What trends in consumer travel do you most want to adopt for your business? Mike Cameron: I would say we’re doing three things, we’re rebuilding our entire platform with three things in mind and all three of them come from the consumer view of the world. The first is simply mobile-friendly, which translated means responsive technology. So the first thing we’re doing is rebuilding our entire platform to be mobile-friendly so that it can be accessed on a smartphone, a tablet or a PC interchangeably with equal functionality. And that’s definitely a consumer trend that we’re all used to. We’re used to being able to access the apps and the websites and the tools t