Business travel in the 21st century

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Planning for the future

Don't bank on luxury making a comeback. When Expedia surveyed younger business travellers, they said "Wi-Fi is more important than extra legroom or upgrades".

What mattered most to them was flexibility; a typical business traveller using Expedia's Egencia business service modifies their itinerary 20 per cent of the time that's just 13 per cent for older travellers (45-65) but Millennials change plans 24 per cent of the time.

They want self-service, last-minute deals and the option of checking in to their hotel on their phone before they even arrive. If they have a problem, they'd rather send a tweet than pick up the phone and when they do ask for help, they want the person they're talking about to know their travel details already - and be able to get them back on their way.

It seems as business travellers, we're prepared to do more of the work to stay in control on the move.

Mary is a freelance business technology journalist who has written for the likes of ITPro, CIO, ZDNet, TechRepublic, The New Stack, The Register, and many other online titles, as well as national publications like the Guardian and Financial Times. She has also held editor positions at AOL’s online technology channel, PC Plus, IT Expert, and Program Now. In her career spanning more than three decades, the Oxford University-educated journalist has seen and covered the development of the technology industry through many of its most significant stages.

Mary has experience in almost all areas of technology but specialises in all things Microsoft and has written two books on Windows 8. She also has extensive expertise in consumer hardware and cloud services - mobile phones to mainframes. Aside from reporting on the latest technology news and trends, and developing whitepapers for a range of industry clients, Mary also writes short technology mysteries and publishes them through Amazon.