Jonathan Carter-Chapman
Marketing Director, Business Travel Show Europe
While the internet has powered innovation in business travel over the last three decades, the future lies in AI, AR, wellbeing and sustainability.
As far as years go, 1994 was pure vintage. If you’re too young to remember, let me give you a whistlestop tour. Oasis and Blur were head-to-head in the charts and mouthing off in the media. Sony launched the PlayStation. Friends aired for the first time. In travel, we celebrated the launch of the Channel Tunnel.
Impactful travel innovation
The year 1994 also heralded the birth of the World Wide Web, which was recently voted — alongside online booking platforms — as the innovation that’s most impacted business travel in the last three decades. This was according to new data from Business Travel Show Europe, which celebrates its 30th birthday this year.
In the future, you may not need your passport to travel — just your face. As digitalisation increases, friction decreases.
Of course, it makes perfect sense the internet came first. Without it, there would be no online booking or e-tickets, mobile apps, global distribution systems or smartphones — the other innovations to make it onto the list — all of which have revolutionised the way we plan, book, manage and go on business travels. Thank goodness they have. Does anyone want to go back to a wallet full of paper tickets and a cabin full of cigarette smoke?
What will business travel look like in the future?
The answer, according to the Business Travel Show Europe data, is equally traveller and technology-driven with only fractionally less reliance on the internet.
Seamless travel (thanks in part to biometrics) is the most obvious change coming down the line said the data. It makes sense. The UK has been issuing ePassports since 2006, and facial recognition will be installed in every airport with international departures by 2026. In the future, you may not need your passport to travel — just your face. As digitalisation increases, friction decreases.
Focus on sustainability and traveller wellbeing
We’ll also see a rise in sustainable travel options including the likes of sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and AI-powered trip curation. AI is already being used in online booking platforms to personalise search results and make recommendations, and this is predicted to get a lot faster and more accurate.
Data also showed that, over the next 30 years, we’ll see an even sharper focus on traveller wellbeing with accommodation and airlines integrating it into their offerings. Finally, some have even suggested that, by 2054, business travel will be no more — thanks to advanced holographic and augmented reality communication. However, they also said travel wouldn’t come back the same post-Covid, so only time will tell.
Business Travel Show Europe takes place 19–20 June at ExCeL in London and is free to attend for corporate travel buyers, bookers and managers in Europe.
