Technology helps tailor destination content for downtime. Photo Credit: Adobe stock/Petro
Wellbeing is paramount for today’s business travellers, and it is not
just about the physical side but the mental aspect too. This was the
subject of a recent podcast from the GBTA Technology Committee, which
examined how travel has seen a shift from ‘duty of care’ to ‘duty to
care’, with the wellbeing of travellers a key part of that shift.
The panel, moderated by Katie Virtue, client solutions lead at travel
and meetings management consultancy Festive Road and GBTA Technology
Committee chair, debated what traveller wellbeing means today and how
new technology solutions are enabling better care of travellers.
A higher profile
Virtue noted how traveller wellbeing is increasingly being placed at
the forefront of risk programmes and that it is important to define what
wellbeing means in relation to business travel. “Traveller wellbeing is
not necessarily spas and massages, five-star accommodation, champagne
receptions, or being always in first or business class,” said Josh Gunn,
global head of product marketing at Corporate Travel Management.
“Instead, it is easier to define in terms of whether the traveller is in
the right physical and mental state to perform at their best, while
travelling and after they travel.”
As Gunn pointed out, it is not worth putting everything into a trip
or experiencing an intense trip if it results in burnout when employees
are back at work; wellbeing should extend beyond the trip.
“The mentality of top sporting professionals - in terms of the steps
they take to ensure they perform at their best prior to games, is
starting to bleed through into corporate travel programmes,” added Gunn.
“If you've got these really important people within your business, it’s
about making sure that they can perform at their best when they go into
a high-pressure environment or if they are presenting at a conference
or trade show. They need to be at the top of their game and they need to
be able to do that continuously afterwards.”
Wellbeing challenge Romain Aubanel from bleisure app, Jack and Ferdi,
highlighted how younger business travellers see wellbeing in terms of
their own impact on the planet, such as the hotel or the type of travel
or ground travel they have chosen.
“They also want to engage locally - we often see in our data that
young business travellers want to volunteer locally, which can be a real
challenge in terms of duty of care,” he said. “They want to shop
responsibly too at the destination - all of these new elements are
making a definition (of wellbeing) incredibly richer, and more complex
to handle from an employer's perspective.”
Looking at personal growth
The panel noted how all too often, organisations can be too focused
on the monetary return of business travel and how it impacts sales and
profits, rather than looking at personal growth as a key element. “The
personal growth element is so key, especially for many organisations
that are saying they want to be purposeful and take care of their
employees,” said Virtue.
Aubanel touched on how Jack and Ferdi’s technology is aimed at
embracing business travel and making it a personal growth opportunity.
“We’ve developed a ‘business travel wellbeing framework’ together with
clinical psychologists and travel medicine specialists,” he said.
“Business travellers only have pockets of free time here and there
between meetings or a conference. The key is digging for the right
content for those business travellers who are pressed for time. Our
technology is focused on personalised recommendations, recognising that
we’re all different. We also try to localise as much as we can with our
recommendations.”
Other elements to consider
Corporate Travel Management uses analytics to identify booking
patterns and behaviours, considering elements such as ‘the intensity of a
trip’, a combination of the time travellers spend in the air, or how
long they are away from home, the class of travel, the number of
overnight flights, how often people are travelling during their personal
time, and whether these times are in the evenings or on weekends.
“These all play a part in absenteeism and lack of engagement,” said
Gunn. “We know these are all negative factors that can detract from
someone’s wellbeing. We've added some other calculations and metrics,
including elements such as how close a hotel or flight was booked to the
start of a trip, because we know that the closer you get to travelling
before you've got everything taken care of, the stress starts to mount
up. We will do calculations to see if a person is fit to travel.”
Gunn added that it is not just about using technology to gauge useful
metrics - it needs to be actionable too. “These factors are nice to
know but aggregate them into a score that someone can holistically look
at and that this person probably needs a break from travel or that
they're good to go,” he said. “We want to shorten the amount of mental
effort and load that someone has to take to make those decisions.”