The travel industry is experiencing a significant transformation fueled by Artificial Intelligence. According to a report, airlines are widely adopting AI business travel technology, with 82% of them planning to implement it by 2025. 

AI tools also offer a virtual travel consultant that can help improve the business travel management process.

Furthermore, AI is proving valuable for companies that want to secure the best deals on flights and hotels. By using AI-based solutions, companies can personalize the travel experience for employees and mitigate travel risks.

Here are some major benefits of using AI to enhance the business travel management process.

It Increases Savings

Reducing travel costs while ensuring a positive travel experience for employees can be challenging for travel managers. Moreover, constantly changing market trends and airfare prices can make it even more difficult to optimize savings.

AI is a powerful business travel technology that can help solve this problem. AI determines the ticket cost by taking into account factors such as the date and time of departure, preferred carrier, pricing trends, weather conditions, etc. This way, with AI-based predictive analytics, managers can foresee airfare prices up to 12 months in advance. 

Further, AI can also assist in forecasting flight disruptions. It analyzes the historical performance of flights and congestion at different airports to determine the delay. As a result, managers get to reduce the costs associated with rebooking flights and hotels. 

It Personalizes the Travel Experience

Each employee has certain preferences and needs when going on a business trip. It is important to cater to these requirements to ensure maximum productivity. A generic booking tool, however, shows many options to the employee that are not tailored to their preferences. 

To tackle this issue, you can opt for travel management software that uses AI technology. The software gathers and analyzes the traveler’s preferences along with previous bookings. It then generates travel packages that align with these requirements and follows the company’s travel policies. 

For instance, the software considers various choices to curate customized packages. These include preferred airline, seating preference on flights (aisle or window), and including meals with hotel room bookings. 

Furthermore, business travelers personalization enables the software to display flights and hotels for which the employee has loyalty points. This ensures that the perks aren’t missed out on.

It Improves Travel Support

Business travelers may encounter unexpected challenges during their trip, such as flight delays. In such situations, they may require immediate help or have questions that must be addressed promptly. However, sometimes they may not be able to reach the designated support team to seek help. 

An AI-based chatbot or virtual travel assistant is a valuable tool that assists travelers 24/7. These chatbots can help with tasks such as checking visa requirements, flight status, or finding alternate flights. Furthermore, some chatbots are equipped with voice recognition capabilities, enabling them to assist travelers with mobility issues.

In addition, a few chatbots also offer multilingual support to travelers. This means that the business traveler can communicate in their preferred language. Ultimately, the availability of a virtual assistant round-the-clock allows the traveler to feel safe and focus on their work objectives.

It Reduces Expense Fraud

One of the biggest challenges that companies face is travel expense fraud. Employees often submit false expense reports in an attempt to receive more money from the company. 

Traditionally, travel managers verify expenses manually and can sometimes miss identifying such claims. As a result, these claims add up to be a massive loss for the company. According to a report, expense fraud costs US employers more than $2.8 billion annually.

AI can help companies tackle this problem by automatically detecting such expense claims. When an employee submits his expense report in AI-based T&E management software, the software auto-verifies the claim against company policies. 

So, if there is an out-of-policy or fraudulent expense, it flags the report and notifies the manager. Consequently, this feature significantly decreases the chances of employees claiming inflated or fictitious expenses. 

It Enables Data-Driven Decisions

Companies often have access to a huge amount of travel-related data. Travel managers can use this data to reduce costs, optimize policies and improve traveler satisfaction. However, it is difficult to interpret this data to get actionable insights. 

This is where an AI-based Virtual Travel Consultant (VTC) comes in. A VTC can analyze vast amounts of data to give you step-by-step guidance on how to implement changes to improve your travel program. 

For instance, if the number of out-of-policy bookings is higher than usual, a VTC can help you identify where to modify your policy or find other ways to lower the number. In addition, a VTC also helps companies reduce costs by identifying patterns in booking behavior that may be costing the company more money. 

By using AI-based business travel technology, companies can spend less time analyzing data themselves and more time making strategic decisions to streamline business travel management.

It Enhances Risk Management

Companies have to stay prepared to ensure the safety of their employees. To do this, proper risk analysis of any location is necessary before sending employees there. However, relying on manual risk estimates can lead to errors and biases, putting employees in danger. Therefore, it’s important for companies to use advanced business travel technology to assess risks accurately.

AI can help companies predict the level of risk an employee might face. It takes into account the landscape, crime rate, weather outbursts, and natural disasters of an area to predict any disruptions in advance. Moreover, when integrated with a travel management system, AI can provide real-time notifications to travel managers regarding emergency situations.

Further, AI, along with the internet of things, enables you to know the traveler’s location at all times. It collects geo-data through traveler itineraries, credit card information, etc., so you can access the traveler in an emergency.

Leverage Business Travel Technology to Enhance the Travel Experience

Clearly, AI has a major role in enhancing the business travel experience. By leveraging AI-based solutions, companies can maximize cost savings and make better decisions. 

To improve your business travel processes, you can use ITILITE. ITILITE is an advanced corporate travel management platform that uses AI to provide customized packages to your employees and caters to their travel needs. 

Furthermore, it auto-detects out-of-policy expenses, reducing the burden of manually verifying expenses. 

We also offer the best in industry virtual travel consultant that offers you a step-by-step guide on how to improve your processes and policies.

To try these benefits, book a demo now.