I know we’re still all-in on leisure and bleisure travel, but let me warn you, hoteliers: I sense discontent brewing among business travelers.
Call it a hunch, call it a product of spending the entire month of March on the road myself for business travel, but I definitely see and feel it: Business travelers I talk to are feeling a little passed over these days.
How do I know this? Well, I talk to people a lot when I travel. Whether it’s in the airport parking lot shuttle, the hotel check-in line or the customs line, I find myself in frequent conversation with strangers — usually fellow business travelers. At least, I hope they’re fellow business travelers and not serial killers.
Anyway. Once these new friends find out I work in the travel industry, they love to share their tales of woe, their complaints and sometimes their kudos. The underlying theme I pick up on — and often feel myself — is that business travelers already are typically a wee bit more annoyed to be back on the road and back in the office, so they want their time on the road to be efficient yet special.
Here are a couple insights about business travel that I picked up from my month of talking to strangers, err … business travelers.
1. They Like To Be Surprised and Delighted As Much as the Leisure Traveler Does
A tech contractor I struck up a conversation with last week in New York City could not stop talking about great it was that the hotel where he was staying offered him a free drink coupon when he checked in. It’s a hotel where he’s stayed with his family in the past on vacations to the city, and they never offered him that particular perk then. “As soon as I told them I was traveling on business, they gave me the drink coupon,” he told me, though I'm paraphrasing. “Like they knew that’s when I’d really need it and actually use it.”
2. They’ll (Probably) Pay for Special Treatment or Access
I notice this one more in airports than in hotels, but there are takeaways for hotels for sure. Here’s the example: Most serious business travelers have TSA PreCheck, Global Entry and Clear. But when the business traveler reaches those lines at the airport and sees that leisure travelers have cottoned on to the special access granted by these programs and are mucking up the line, you can hear that collective, audible, annoyed sigh a mile away.
Now the buzz for business travelers is around mobile passport, but the underlying idea is the same: Create special access that separates them from the masses of children carrying their own rolling suitcases, and business travelers will take it. I would say that mobile key is the best example of how hotels interpret this trend right now, but keep in mind that special access is important currency for business travelers.
And along those same lines …
3. They Do Love a Lounge — or at Least the Amenities Within It
Hotel lounges used to be exclusive-yet-accessible enclaves for loyalty members who were largely business travelers. Now that loyalty strategies are so stratified and labor costs are so high, hotel lounges in many cases are so ultra-exclusive that the gap is insurmountable.
I belong to Priority Pass, a credit card perk that grants me access to a growing number of airline-agnostic airport lounges around the world. Two weeks ago, I chatted with a woman traveling for business like I was. We discussed how nice the Priority Pass lounges are, with pretty good food, great connectivity, Wi-Fi and nice amenities. She told me how she lost high status with her preferred hotel company and preferred airline last year — no, I won’t name names — and therefore lost lounge access at both. “It’s not about missing out on the free food, but more about missing out on the little perks and the peace and quiet so I could get things done,” she said, and again I'm paraphrasing.
4. We Need To Print Stuff, Sometimes
I know I'm probably in the minority, but twice in the past month I needed to print something critical while I was on the road. Finding a printer was an epic undertaking. In Lima, I had to run a diagnostic and repair the printer myself. (In Spanish! No wonder I couldn't do it.) In LA, I had to load an ink cartridge. I don't mind doing those things, but man, the time lost is a pain.
That's where it comes back to efficiency. Efficiency and feeling a little special — that’s all most of us business travelers need. One drink coupon ought to do it!
What do you think? Email me, or find me on Twitter or LinkedIn.
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