Balancing Cost Reduction with Traveller Well-Being, Powered by Predictive Analytics

Red commercial airplane landing on stacked coins placed on a laptop keyboard, symbolizing airline costs, travel expenses, and financial analytics in the aviation industry.

Balancing Cost Reduction with Traveller Well-Being, Powered by Predictive Analytics

Business travel is not cheap, but that doesn’t mean you can make cheap decisions, like budget airlines and one-star hotels. The reason is simple, modern business travel is human-centric, which means it prioritises traveller well-being. It doesn’t mean you blow the budget on 5-star hotels and first-class tickets. Instead, the focus is on developing travel programmes that reduce stress, prevent mental and physical fatigue, optimise productivity, and manage costs.

Analytics, especially predictive analytics, can help you achieve all these goals. But, how?

Metrics, Spending Patterns & Cost Management

Four types of analytics can be tailored to business travel.

1) Descriptive analytics: Using past data to identify current spending patterns.

Spend by location, department, employee, or period.
Distribution of costs across things like airfare, meals, and accommodation.

2) Diagnostic analytics: Reasons behind overspending.

Why some trips are more expensive than others.
The factors that lead to overspending.

3) Predictive analytics: Identify future spending patterns.

Future travel demand and budgets.
Estimated costs that cover things like destination and traveller profiles.

4) Prescriptive analytics: Planning future business trips.

Practical suggestions based on travel requirements and budget constraints.
Cost-savings through consolidated bookings and volume discounts.

Why Predictive Analytics Matter

Predictive analytics help you plan trips that balance costs and traveller well-being. For a start, it can save you up to 150% on corporate travel annually!

It achieves this by suggesting optimal booking schedules; for example, booking two months
in advance is more cost-effective for international flights. It also helps to optimise itinerary planning for specific travellers. For example, Alan prefers long-haul flights with long layovers, while Alex prefers direct flights. This helps with booking times and airline selection.

Additional benefits include:

Realistic cost analysis for your business’s specific travel requirements. This enables accurate budget planning.
Analyse airline performance and automatic updates to risk alerts for particular destinations. You can avoid airlines with a large percentage of cancelled or late flights.
AI-powered systems propose alternative suggestions, like more reliable airlines.

Why Predictive Analytics Matter for Business Travellers

Corporate travel agencies or managers can use predictive analytics to enhance traveller well-being in many ways. It can be particularly useful when it drills down into traveller-specific data.

For example:

It collects data on the number of long-haul flights, trip duration, and time between flights to identify potential physical health risks, including fatigue.
It can also flag potential mental health risks resulting from long periods away from family, too many trips on their own, and packed itineraries.
Physical and mental health issues affect productivity. A survey by World Travel Protection found that 21% of respondents feel stressed, exhausted (20%), anxious (18%), and lonely (13%).

AI-powered analytics can suggest preventative measures that include airports with comfortable lounges for long layovers, hotels with gyms or swimming pools for light exercise and relaxation, and sightseeing opportunities during breaks in the itinerary or after business has been concluded.

How Businesses Can Use Predictive Analytics & AI to Ensure Traveller Well-Being

Travel platforms, analytics, and AI tools can make your life easier by automating certain travel-related admin tasks and enhancing employee health, safety, and satisfaction while on the road.

Centralised payments: A system that ensures all trips are paid for directly by the company. Employees don’t have to pay out of their own pockets and wait for reimbursement. Also, data is automatically recorded and added to analytics tools for cost-related analysis.
Expense reporting: Mobile apps automatically record expenses and can generate reports without staff manually matching expenses to receipts and uploading data to spreadsheets or other reporting tools.
Accommodation: Compare accommodation options that offer value, for example, in-house gyms or spas that offer massages (etc.), proximity to recommended restaurants, laundry services, and even ethical business practices and supply chains.

Make Well-Being a Habit

Developing a travelling programme that prioritises employee well-being as much as cost is the first step. The second is actually implementing and maintaining it. The third is ensuring the programme is customisable, so it can adjust to suit individual travellers. This is where analytics that provide insight into employee behaviour come into the picture.

Work with your corporate travel agency or manager to implement a policy that is so user-friendly, it’s virtually self-sustaining. This is where AI and automation come into the picture. The easier and more convenient processes are, the more likely they’ll be maintained. Things like mobile apps that track activity help you get an idea of your employees’ habits and character.

For example, Adam likes to spend most of his spare time at his hotel, while Amy likes to see the sights. Adam’s personalised programme might ensure his hotels have lots of amenities, like pools, spas, and various forms of entertainment, so he can relax without leaving his comfort zone.

Meanwhile, Amy might do well with hotels near transport hubs, so she can easily get to the tourist hotspots she loves to see.

It’s all about information, and the only way you can get the data you need is to invest in analytics tools that can crunch large amounts of data and turn it into actionable insights. This is essential for your budget and your employees’ well-being.