SAP Concur looks in the crystal ball for business travel in 2019

Source: SAP Concur. Evered.

Nick Evered, SVP and GM, Japan and Asia Pacific at SAP Concur, suggests that business travel is going to be transformed in 2019.

“As the lines between business and leisure travel continue blurring, more professionals are combining their business trips with weekend stays. Most of them want to experience the city that they are visiting and see things beyond just the hotel meeting rooms, making ride-sharing and accommodating services such as Grab and Airbnb as the ideal options. Entering 2019, travel managers will need to rethink how they can start offering these sharing economy services as part of their suite of travel management programme and policy framework,” he said.

“As employees have more ways to incur travel expenses than ever, 2019 is the time for organisations to rethink their strategy to thrive in such changing times. Many businesses are still using legacy spend management tools that fail to keep pace with today’s business travellers whose on-the-go work style require simple, mobile and reliable solutions. Spend management tools must evolve to meet the needs of companies and its business travellers. Modern technology including automated spend management tools can help to streamline processes and provide better user experience for employees.”

Evered also introduced the concept of 'bleisure', or combining business with leisure. " Driven by the blurring lines between work and personal life along with the need to make the stress of business travel more manageable, bleisure travel will become increasingly common,” Evered said.

“Data from SAP Concur indicates the that the entire workforce is including leisure days as part of their business trips where possible. Accommodating bleisure in travel policies can help companies to demonstrate that they value their employees’ wellbeing and work-life balance.

Evered also noted that a global workforce means that employees are constantly crossing the borders. “While the length of the trip and the reasons for travel may vary, the complexity of today’s business environment means that there are numerous tax provisions that organisations have to navigate,” he elaborated.

“A company that wants to minimise the risks associated with tax compliance will need to take a more proactive approach. In 2019, employers need to better track where employees are frequently travelling to and the tax laws of that country. A pre-assessment process should also be implemented to better determine any personal or corporate tax exposure.”