For its annual event on the French market, ACTE invited travel buyers and travel managers to one of the epicentres of business travel made in France: the headquarters of the AccorHotels groupThe conference will take place at the Tour Sequana in Issy-les-Moulineaux. An ideal setting, then, for deciphering the major trends in the sector, and imagining what tomorrow's business travel could be like.
" La digitisation and its impact on business travel "This was the angle chosen by the teams from the American association for this half-day of discussions, introduced by Sabah Kahoul, Project Manager (ACTE), and moderated by Jean-Michel Kadaner (Areka Consulting). Logically, it was through the prism of the hotel industry that the conference first tackled the impact of digitalisation. Agathe Fabron, in charge of Business Travel and Meetings & Events at AccorHotels, looked at the changing behaviour of travellers, highlighting the efforts made by the hotel giant to adapt to these new uses, and to respect the precarious balance between travel policy and traveller autonomy.
But it was probably the section devoted to artificial intelligence and the services it could provide to travellers that really stood out. The presentation by Eneric Lopez, Director of Business Strategy at Microsoft, opened up some very interesting avenues to explore, both for business travellers and for business travel suppliers. Far from advocating the advent of 'all technology', Eneric Lopez was keen to place the human element back at the heart of this ecosystem in the making. A human being "augmented" by new technologies - like the experiment conducted by Air New Zealand, which uses augmented reality to improve the relationship between the steward and the passenger in flight - and not "replaced" by some robot or other.
distinguishing the useful from the intrusive
This session dedicated to artificial intelligence also provided an opportunity for Marilyn Markham (American Express Global Business Travel) to explain the business travel agency's strategy, described as a "business travel agency". revitalising our technological capital" . While TMC is banking heavily on the technological developments unveiled in part at the last TEUsHowever, Marilyn Markham urges a certain amount of caution: "you have to distinguish between what is useful and what is intrusive" when it comes to personalising the service offered to business travellers, she points out.
