Skift Take

Many travel managers do not solicit feedback from their travelers, which seems like a missed opportunity. The evidence, however, shows that reacting to traveler feedback doesn't necessarily lead to more satisfied travelers.

Travel managers want their travelers to be effective and happy on the road, but they also want them to book inside company policy.

A recent survey from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) asked 313 travel buyers and managers in North and Latin America about the role traveler well-being plays in determining corporate travel policy.

The survey found that traveler well-being is a major concern for travel managers, of course, and that the more satisfied a traveler is, the more likely they are going to stay in policy during a trip.

Despite this, many travel managers don’t rely on traveler feedback when tweaking their policy; 31 percent of the North American travel managers said they never measure traveler satisfaction.

How Often Do North American Companies Measure Traveler Satisfaction
After Every Trip 7%
Monthly 7%
Quarterly 17%
Yearly 39%
Never 31%

“Travel managers must balance traveler well-being and satisfaction along with many competing priorities from cost-savings and compliance to duty of care and keeping up with the latest technology,” said Monica Sanchez, GBTA Foundation director of research. “Business traveler well-being efforts can take on a variety of forms focusing on efficiency, comfort, choice and service. Collecting traveler feedback can inform travel programs what areas to pay the most attention to, and this study indicates that traveler well-being and policy compliance do not have to come at the expense of the other.”

When companies do look at feedback, they mainly ask about the traveler’s experience with customer support provided by travel management companies, online booking in general, and online booking tools.

In their feedback, travelers are saying they are more satisfied now than two or three years ago, perhaps the result of better technology tools making their lives easier.

“Travel programs must balance well-being and satisfaction with their other priorities,” concludes the report. “It is not clear, however, that they face a significant trade-off. High compliance travel programs have similar—if not higher—traveler satisfaction compared to lower compliance programs, according to travel managers surveyed. This suggests that traveler well-being/satisfaction efforts may not undermine compliance – and in fact may even improve it.”

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Tags: business travel, gbta

Photo credit: Are travel managers and corporations missing out by downplaying employee feedback? Pictured is a woman at an airport. Global Business Travel Association

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