Colleges and universities as we know them will cease to exist in a generation.

American higher education is being radically transformed by technology and 24/7 continuous education online. Should a university not be on board with this change, they will not survive the competition. The accelerating transformation of higher education is but a decade old and the change has been remarkable to date, increasing exponentially year by year.

Online higher education still is vigorously opposed by traditional college administrators and faculty worldwide. It is considered by many of today’s educators as the absolute worst application for college bound students. Up until the last half-dozen years, it has been shunned in one way or another by the majority of the top 50 universities. Since 2007, this hands-off tune has changed.

Colleges have morphed rapidly over the ongoing years to keep up with student demand for online education and survive the upstart competition brought down upon them in waves from a bevy of well entrenched and successful privately held online colleges. These so-called online upstarts pose a serious threat to many liberal arts schools. Traditional colleges can no longer compete on a local, regional or international scale without adding online degree programs.

As a result, universities who formally fought against adopting any online protocols except from textbook providers at the turn of the 21st century are now adopting hybrid programs (online and class based) at a staggering conversion rate. Schools offering online degree programs increased 700 per-cent in the past ten years alone and there is no slowing down thousands from among the 17,000 accredited universities worldwide who are now anxious to get onboard and grab their piece of the global education market.

The biggest problem facing universities opting to add online programs is the wide gap in teaching competency that exists when the classroom lecturer attempts to convert to become an online instructor. There is, unfortunately, a grave shortage of adequately qualified and competent online instructors. This is the result of universities pressed to develop online programs quickly to keep up. Rapid expansion and the inability to fill online teaching positions with well qualified and experienced online professors have proved to be a giant obstacle to quality pedagogy.

Converting their own professors to online experts, university administrators have found that it is painfully harder than it looks. The “teach online” skillset requires the addition of a modicum of technical expertise that the bulk of traditional educators do not possess. They are reluctant to either learn or adapt. When pressed, they gravitate to the least effective means of delivering an online course. This does not impress technically savvy online students coming up today, those born in the technology age.

Thus, the gap in teaching quality between the classroom and online class has given a number of traditionalist detractors the continuing ammunition they need to chip away at the progress of online acceptance even when the survival of their own institution is at stake. The old adage that ‘you can’t teach an old dog new tricks’ certainly is played out in this ongoing battle between progressive administrators and entrenched and in-denial faculty.

Polling by the Pew Foundation and the super cyber Center for Entrepreneurship, Ethics and Free Enterprise bear out the fact students prefer online course work over sitting in a classroom. When compared to on-ground, students who have experienced both actually find online classes preferable by a measure of three to one over sit-down traditional classes.

It is hard to argue with success. Regardless, the traditionalist-minded continue to be blinded by their academic prejudice and history’s signposts. One of those classic signposts was the view of Middle Age professors and administrators who were convinced that the adoption of the new radical innovation – the blackboard, would ruin higher education forever.

Most of the top-tier non-profit traditional schools today do not measure up to the top for-profit online universities either in the quality of teaching or advancing innovative delivery systems and methodology. Recent new online class adoption by traditional schools find them shamelessly promoting to the public that they are better at teaching online programs. They base this observation on their long-standing reputation as traditional schools. This perception is a myth and does not jive with reality. Neither does their argument that for-profit schools are only doing it for the profit motive while their own non-profit is only in it to expand their educational opportunities online. This too is also a myth.

The reality is an institutional perception from those who have not previously adopted online courses is that this is easy money. Non-profit universities generally perceive online education programs as potential cash cows to support faculty research and the expansion of residential facilities such as labs and school expansion. Advancing innovative education and superior methods for acquiring knowledge are not high on the list of reasons for adopting online education protocols by most.

Today a student attending a university that offers online courses is able to take their professor and classes anywhere they desire. In the next six months, 3D and holographic capabilities for classrooms online are just a short hop, skip and a jump from being introduced through online education protocols. Initially this advance will come strictly through cutting edge online universities. Within two years, we can expect an even more advanced new breed of college educator invading cyber classrooms. This is the Universal Professor Avatar; a character morphed from several online experts filled with interdisciplinary knowledge capable of teaching a complete online degree program of the student’s choice.

This is rightly named as the age of traveler-centricity and with the evolution of the new era of personalized travel; it is leading to research and development of a host of new so-called intelligent services. The command-and-control perspectives of traveling have changed a lot from the past and the focus has shifted more on the traveler and the productivity of each trip. It has become essential to maintain that the travelers have the greatest return on investment on each trip. New generations of young employees and managers, who have been growing up and dwelling in a digital age, are moving up the ranks as travelers. It has become essential to recognize the need for greater flexibility acknowledging that the employees who travel on corporate trips also consider a percentage of their trip to be a leisure outlet. With increasing globalization and rise in companies sending their staff overseas to network and connect with their offshore prospects/customers/suppliers, corporate travel is a highly profitable tourism segment. Before we talk about how tourism companies can better cater to business travelers, let us first look at why they prefer to use specialized corporate agencies over traditional agents

Why do businesses use Corporate Travel Agencies?

This might be the most basic question for a travel agency as to why they need to use agencies specializing in corporate travel when there are plenty of regular travel agents in the market. Here is the importance of corporate travel agencies who have online systems which allow business travelers access to their complete itinerary.

The following information is at the fingertips of the CTAs:-

full business itinerary details
up-to-date tracking details of flights (including delays or rescheduling)
transparent details about additional costs such as baggage fees or in-flight fees
travel alerts, if any, in the destined area
complete and up-to-date details about the visa procurement policies and identification required
currency requirement and conversion rates
What do corporate clients expect from Corporate Travel Agencies?

Negotiated Fares

The Corporate Agencies tend to have tie-ups with hotels, car rentals, flights etc. giving them access to lower fares which can be used only by the frequent business travelers. Discounted prices are not the only advantage though as they also offer flight upgrades, room upgrades, and VIP check-in lines as required.

In-depth information about the travel industry

Corporate travel agents have access to many travel resources and most importantly, quickly, than any other leisure travel agent. Additional information helps to make the business trips convenient and comfortable.

Changes in Itinerary

When an airline ticket needs to get rescheduled or cancelled, chances are the airline or the online service provider will charge lofty fees. When booking with a corporate travel agent, most of the times schedule changes can be done at zero or minimal extra charges.

Viable emergency contacts

It is important for the business travelers to reach the correct person at the need of trouble. Corporate travel agents have the experience and professionalism to relieve stress for both the traveler and the company.

What you need to consider as corporate travel increases?

Business Travel Barometer reported that corporate travel is witnessing an accelerated growth. However, when poorly managed, it may be no longer an advantage to companies and may, in fact become a burden. There are some factors which the corporations and CTAs must consider to get the best out of the time spent traveling.

Adopting a travel policy

The corporate must define a travel policy which is applicable to and respected by travelers at all levels. This policy should be used to establish the standards which will help to track the improvement of business travel. It will eventually help to reduce the costs of the entire package.

Do not limit the traveler’s autonomy

The management is responsible for budgeting the travel policy which helps to improve cost management however, it is also essential to give a degree of autonomy to the traveler. The policy should be flexible enough to allow the employee to adapt the trip as per the situation.

Traveler’s security should be a major concern

Business travelers need to have security in place. The company needs to stick to its definition of standards to ensure the employee’s integrity. The CTAs should have reliable partners (travel insurance, airlines, hotel chains etc.).

Mobility and automation

To optimize time and ease the processes, the administration of management platforms should have automated processes. This means they should adopt mobile solutions where search options, travel alerts, ticket reservations etc. can be accessed quickly, easily and on the go.

Corporate Travel Trends in 2016

Corporate travel trends tend to change regularly. 2016 has also not been any different and the travel management companies (TMCs) and corporate travel agencies (CTAs) are quite focused to provide steady if not strong axis all over. A growing MICE sector, investments in mobile and big data and enhanced focus on duty of care are some of their areas of focus.

Rising prices

The consolidated buzzword among global suppliers, airfares, hotel rates etc. is the rising fares. It is sometimes the move of the suppliers to generate discounts which encourage travel if there is a strong decline in demand. A positive 2016 world economy has been bringing an increase in air fares of a few percentage points, hotels are expected to see 4%-6% rise in average global rates and the competition will remain moderate in the car rental services.

Duty of care

Risk management is one of the major points of emphasis for corporations. Corporate customers are allowing new policies and improved technologies to monitor employees’ location in case of an emergency, especially when they are travelling to foreign destinations. For instance, Concur Risk Messaging helps to identify the travelers moving around in the world and alerts them with alternate travel arrangement as and when needed.

Focusing on MICE

Meetings industry is a major growing sector and the corporate travel trend is developing on it. The corporate travel agencies should better start aligning the various meeting procurement methodologies with its transient travel sourcing. One of the ways could be to broaden the variety of meeting services by incorporating incentive trips within it.

Investing in technology

A sharper focus on increasing value and becoming more traveler-centric can be done by bringing in mobile friendly technologies. Mobile and big data are definitely the two most significant technological investments which any corporate travel agency must focus to make their platform more appealing.

Business travel analysis after Brexit

Following Brexit, ACTE and CAPA shared their speculations. According to them, the greatest short-term effects on the travel industry will come from the weakening of the pound against other world currencies. Greeley Koch, executive director for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives said that the business travel industry will trend on currency fluctuations; with some companies taking advantage of the weaker pound and traveling more, while others may withhold business travel until world markets find their own level.

Impact of terrorism on corporate travelers

Travel policy makers and administrators need to be guided by rising terrorism scare. For executives and staff undertaking travel on behalf of businesses, the travel agents and corporate travel agencies (CTAs) should prove the reassurance for their safety through the travel policies. It is more than likely that the surveys conducted over corporate travelers reflect the general concern of the global business travelers about the spate of terrorism. However, there is no denying the fact that terrorist threat is changing the patterns of business travel. The key impact of this is to keep in mind that the companies providing travel services for business travelers need to enhance their focus on security and the associated risks in delivering the services to corporate clients. According to a recent finding, travel managers have higher estimation of their policy’s effectiveness in addressing risk compared to skeptical business travelers.

Concluding

Although the corporate travel sector has continued to progress, there are a plethora of challenges faced by the industry. A rapidly changing consumer market, the emergence of new business models, the impact of technology, man-made and natural crises are some of the fulcrum points that need to be considered before planning corporate trips.