Cautious growth has been the forecast for a while now, and we're already seeing the impact on travel companies. We're curious if the rest of the year will bring more of the same.
With the Brexit vote just behind us and U.S. elections looming, some form of stability — eventually — will be a welcome change of pace for companies that cater to corporate travelers.
Global business travel had a great year in 2015, thanks to overall economic growth, but 2016 could be a different story as there's considerably more uncertainty in global markets this year.
Egencia is leveraging the tech-savvy of its parent Expedia Inc. to compete at a high level in the corporate travel space. It has a real competitive advantage against other travel management companies, which have begun to pivot from providing travel services to developing travel technology solutions to solve the problems that travel buyers and agents can't.
It's good to see that the corporate travel world recognizes the need to make business travel more like leisure. We're eager to see how that continues to play out in reality.
The irony of this conversation, unfortunately for car services, is that ridesharing trips already account for nearly half of ground transportation spending expensed through U.S. companies. So the fingerpointing and recriminations continue.
Big travel management companies are going to look to acquire technology companies and smaller competitors as they struggle to scale up their technology platforms.