Egencia, the only recognized B2B travel technology platform, part of American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT), announced new enhancements to its guest traveler features, providing temporary users with a program experience comprehensive trips, including easy self-service booking and 24/7 emergency assistance.
Guest travelers can now choose their travel options easily and quickly, and businesses can benefit from increased visibility and improved travel policy compliance.
Reservations that increased by 33% in 2022
Bookings made by executive travel arrangers for clients and other travelers increased to 33% in 2022, from 26% in 2019. Thanks to improved self-service features for guest travelers and the configuration flexibility depending on the type of guest, executive travel arrangers will have more time to devote to other business priorities and spend less time manually managing travel for people outside the company.
The Egencia platform offers many benefits to executive travel planners or user clients:
Simple self-service: Travelers can easily register via an invite link and book themselves on the platform and mobile app, enjoying easy access to support, updates on trips and alerts
- Better visibility : Guest travelers now have their own personal profile that consolidates all the information they need in one place, allowing them to better manage risk and gain visibility with Egencia Traveler Finder
- A flexible setup : Profiles are tailored to different access levels, so customers determine which services guest travelers can use, such as viewing travel itineraries, getting assistance, or booking a ride journey
- temporary access : the “lifetime” of guest accounts is predefined, reducing the burden on Travel Managers in terms of deleting temporary accounts
- Enhanced security : reduction of the risk of fraudulent reservations thanks to a better process of identification and authentication of the traveler
John Sturino, VP Product & Technology at Egencia, explains: “
With the new world of work, we are seeing a change in business travel patterns. Business travel booking for people outside of a company is on the rise, from inviting job candidates for an in-person interview to hiring contractors. We’ve been providing guest travel solutions to our clients for years, and in 2022 we’ve supported over 800,000 guest trips. To make the booking experience smoother, we’ve designed a self-service experience that allows businesses to book travel for their guest travelers in a faster and more convenient way. »
In a pilot project across North America and Europe, 20 customers helped influence new features intended to alleviate some of the pain points of increasing guest booking volumes, travel tracking and configuring invitations. Although the guest user travel solution has been available to customers for years, the new guest travel features will be available to all Egencia customers by early April, with the majority of them already using guest services with a high level of engagement.
Stacy Heck, Global Travel Manager, The Giorgi Companies: “Egencia’s new guest travel features dramatically speed up the process of arranging travel for people outside of our organization. We have, for example, dozens of temporary project team members, who need to travel for training abroad, but also candidates who need a plane ticket to have an in-person interview. . It is now possible to make multiple reservations simultaneously, and guests can enter their personal information themselves. »
Later this year, Neo, Amex GBT’s online travel expense management solution, will also be making enhancements to further streamline its guest booking capabilities. Guest travelers will be able to create their own profile, relieving travel executives of this task and giving guests quicker access to self-service travel management solutions.
To learn more about Egencia and its guest travel management services, visit www.egencia.com.
