Leisure travelers have become used to controlling every step of a trip, from booking a flight or a car to making dinner reservations. Business travelers, less so; there has always been some corporate bean counter looking over their shoulders.
休闲旅行者已经习惯于控制旅行的每一步，从订机票、租车到预订晚餐。而商务旅行者不太会这样。公司总会安排财务人员监督他们。
But that is changing as business travel picks up and the overseers of company budgets permit the digital empowerment of traveling employees and tentatively embrace the sharing economy.
但是情况在改变，因为商务旅行越来越多，公司成本的监督者们开始允许商旅员工使用数字工具，并尝试接受分享经济。

Travel managers are calling this the age of traveler centricity, and apps from Uber, the ride-hailing service, and similar innovations are increasingly part of it. In the next few years, if company policies can keep up, the new era of personalized travel could lead to a host of new so-called intelligent services, delivered through apps and smartphones, that will automatically assist business travelers based on their profiles and preferences, potentially making what is typically a grind through traffic, airports and tight itineraries less stressful and more productive.
旅行经理们说，如今是以旅行者为中心的时代，叫车服务Uber等应用程序及类似的创新正越来越多地参与其中。在未来几年里，如果公司政策相应改变，那么个性化旅行的新时代将催生很多所谓的新型智能服务，它们通过应用程序和智能手机，根据商务旅行者的档案和偏好自动提供帮助，届时，交通、机场和紧张行程等一系列苦差事也许会变得不那么沉重，而且会更成效。
“There is a shift away from the command-and-control perspectives of the past,” said Greeley Koch, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. “The focus now is more on the traveler and the productivity of each trip, so that travelers can have the greatest return on investment on each trip.”
“现在情况发生了转变，不再是过去那种命令与控制的模式，”公司旅行管理协会(Association of Corporate Travel Executives)的执行主任格里利·科克(Greeley Koch)说，“目前人们更关注旅行者本身，以及每次旅行的效率，让旅行者能在每次旅行中获得最大的投资回报。”
The environment is much changed from that of a few years ago, after the Great Recession froze much of business travel. Since then, a revolution in mobile technology has taken firm hold. The business travel market seems ripe for the kind of disruption that has transformed retailing, entertainment and other areas, offering technological solutions to make cumbersome transactions more intuitive and seamless.
几年前，经济衰退导致商务旅行大为减少，如今环境改变了很多。自那时起，移动技术革新已牢固生根。商务旅行市场似乎已经成熟，能够经受移动技术的冲击，这种技术已经改变了零售和娱乐等行业。它提供技术解决方案，让繁琐的交易变得更易于理解和使用，而且更严密周到。
But while most business travelers have a smartphone and, according to a study by Expedia, 78 percent of them have used it in some travel-planning capacity, corporations still make it hard for their traveling employees to use current technology and integrate their own travel management tools with company programs. In part, this is a result of travel managers’ reluctance to give employees too much control over purchasing decisions, fearing that doing so will erode cost controls.
根据便利旅游公司(Expedia)的研究，虽然大部分商务旅行者拥有智能手机，但是只有78%的人用手机规划旅行，公司政策仍让商旅员工很难使用当今技术，很难把自己的旅行管理手段与公司的程序结合起来。其中一个原因是，旅行经理们不愿给予员工太多购买决定权，担心这样做会影响成本控制。
“There is a general dissatisfaction with the corporate travel technology,” said Mark Hollyhead, the senior vice president for Egencia Americas, a travel management company owned by Expedia. “In the 10 to 15 years the Internet has grown, travel management has been driven by corporations. Compliance and reporting have been the bedrock of these policies.”
“人们普遍对公司的旅行技术感到不满，”旅行管理公司易信达(Egencia Americas)的高级副总裁马克·霍利海德(Mark Hollyhead)说。该公司隶属于便利旅游公司。“在互联网发展的10至15年里，旅行管理由公司驱动。服从和汇报一直是公司旅行政策的基础。”
Only one in four companies had a policy governing mobile devices as they related to employee travel, according to research by the travel distribution service Travelport and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives. But some are beginning to recognize the need for greater flexibility. They are acknowledging that their employees who travel on business are behaving the way they do on their leisure trips — looking for information online and gaining insights from a variety of sources.
据旅行服务公司Travelport和公司旅行管理协会调查，只有四分之一的公司设立了关于员工旅行中利用移动设备的管理规定。但是有些公司开始意识到，有必要给予员工更多灵活性。它们认可员工在进行商务旅行时也采用休闲旅行的方式——在网上寻找信息，通过各种渠道获得深入了解。
They also recognize that a new generation of young employees and managers who grew up in a digital age are moving up the ranks, and they are used to dealing with technology more directly on handsets.
这些公司也意识到，在数字时代成长起来的新一代年轻员工和经理们的职位在不断上升，他们习惯于更直接地在手机上运用技术。
Travel policies traditionally focus on rules, enforcement and compliance. They typically run 50 or 60 pages and are written to deter a minority of travelers from doing the wrong thing rather than to encourage the majority who are doing the right thing, Mr. Koch said.
科克说，过去的旅行政策注重规则、执行和服从。政策文件一般长达五六十页，目的在于阻止一小部分商旅员工做错事，而不是为了鼓励大部分正确行事的员工。
“These policies were all-encompassing, from how you travel to who took care of your dog in your absence,” he said. “But people realized that when you have 60-page documents, no one knows what the policy contains anymore.”
“这些政策无所不包，从如何旅行到离家后小狗的看护，”他说，“但是人们发现，如果文件长达60页，那么谁也不知道里面到底有哪些规定。”
Now, with the emphasis shifting toward flexibility, policies are getting shorter. At the same time, companies are also loosening travel budgets after the relative austerity that accompanied the recession. With the economy growing and fuel prices low, the Global Business Travel Association expects total United States business travel spending to grow by 3 percent this year to about $300 billion, and by 6 percent in 2016.
如今，旅行政策变得越来越灵活，政策文件也越来越短。与此同时，在经济衰退时期的相对紧缩之后，公司也放松了对旅行成本的控制。随着经济发展，油价降低，全球商务旅行协会(Global Business Travel Association)预计，今年美国的总商旅费可能会增长3%，达3000亿美元，2016年会增长6%。
As a side benefit in this environment, corporations now have the opportunity to use travel policies to attract new employees — for example, by offering them the ability to travel in business class during longer trips or on international flights. “The talent war is back,” said Caroline Strachan, a vice president at American Express Global Business Travel. “If companies are starting to be challenged in finding new talent, then a shift in policy is a good thing.”
这种经济环境的一个附带益处是，现在公司有机会用旅行政策来吸引新雇员——比如，允许他们在长途旅行时或在国际航班上乘坐公务舱。“人才争夺战又开始了，”美国运通全球商务旅行部(American Express Global Business Travel)副总裁卡罗琳·斯特拉汉(Caroline Strachan)说，“如果公司在寻找新人才方面出现困难，那么改变政策是个好办法。”
“What has been really interesting, in the past couple of months, is seeing a shift where clients are understanding that their business travel policies are also an acquisition tool for talent,” she said, particularly for younger employees and among tech firms. In the changed economic climate, many companies are moving their travel departments away from finance or procurement and into human resources.
她说，“非常有趣的是，在过去几个月里，我们看到了这种变化，客户们发现，商务旅行政策也是吸引人才的一种手段”，特别是对年轻雇员和技术公司来说。在经济环境改变的情况下，很多公司把旅行部从财务部或采购部分离出来，挪到人力资源部。
Norm Rose, the president of Travel Tech Consulting, said travelers were the big winners as technology moved faster than corporate policies.
旅行技术咨询公司(Travel Tech Consulting)总裁诺姆·罗斯(Norm Rose)说，技术发展快于公司政策改变这种局势让商旅者成为大赢家。
“When you talk about mobile technology, what you’re really talking about is empowerment,” Mr. Rose said. “We are in an environment where the very fact that mobile technology is holding so strongly has shifted the balance of power toward travelers. For managed business, that’s a growing challenge.”
“我们在讨论移动技术时，其实是在讨论权力分配问题，”罗斯说，“在我们所处的环境中，移动技术十分强大，这改变了公司与商旅者之间的力量平衡。对商务管理来说，这个挑战越来越大。”
Continuing innovation in mobile technology offers the prospect of a future in which interactive software will automatically be able to guide travelers through their journey, helping schedule and coordinate flights, hotels and rental cars.
随着移动技术不断创新，未来的互动软件将能够自动引导旅行者完成旅程，帮助规划和协调机票、酒店预订和车辆租赁。
“The more intelligence there is, the more behind-the-scenes activity can happen if there is a disruption or a change in flight,” Mr. Rose said. “This should make it easier for travelers. By 2020, we should begin to see the impact of this.”
“未来的技术会更加智能，在航班中断或更改时，会有更多幕后活动得以实现，”罗斯说，“这会给旅行者带来便利。到2020年，我们应该就会开始看到它的影响。”
Airlines and airports are already relying on sensors in airports to track the flow of passengers and identify bottlenecks in traffic between the curb and the gate. And they alert passengers either through text messages or emails if a flight is delayed.
航空公司和机场已经在依靠机场感应器追踪乘客流量，找出乘客入口和登机口之间的交通瓶颈。如果航班延误，他们通过短信或邮件告知乘客。
But technology in the future will allow them to see travelers’ positions — through the GPS device on their phones — to track their movements. If a passenger is late for a flight, for instance, an airline might decide to rebook the passenger on the next flight automatically. The car rental service or taxi service would know of the delay, and the hotel might be notified of a late arrival — all seamlessly.
不过，未来的技术能通过旅行者手机上的GPS看到他们的位置，追踪他们的行动。如果乘客没赶上飞机，航空公司可以决定自动为他改签下一个航班。租车公司或出租车公司以及酒店也会得到消息——一切都能实现无缝衔接。
“Today, this stuff is very manual and only happens primarily with the top executives of a company, who have someone who monitors their travel and takes care of them,” Mr. Koch said. “But in the future, that will all be linked together. All these things will trickle down and happen.”
“如今，这些事务还得人工操作，通常只有公司高层能享受这样的待遇，有人照看他们的行程，处理这些事务，”科克说，“但是将来，所有这些都被联系起来。所有这些事情会自动关联，自动进行。”
What is missing, however, is for a tech innovator like Apple or Google to come up with software and technology that integrate all the disparate flows of information that are collected and make them work together.
不过，现在需要的是苹果(Apple)或谷歌(Google)这样的技术创新公司设计出软件和技术，把所有分散的信息整合起来，使之协同运作。
“This is kind of the holy grail,” Mr. Koch said. “We have all this power in our smartphones, but all the individual apps are not talking to each other yet.”
“这是最高目标，”科克说，“这些功能我们的智能手机都有，但是所有这些独立的应用程序还没有相互联系起来。”
For now, there are more prosaic apps. Airlines have long sought to develop more direct relationships with business travelers. Through their mobile travel apps, they can already offer more personal service and provide easy check-in options and electronic boarding passes to passengers.
目前，大多数应用程序较为平庸。长期以来，航空公司一直想与商务旅行者建立更直接的关系。通过他们自己的旅行应用程序，航空公司已经能够为乘客提供更个性化的服务、更便捷的登机手续办理方式，以及电子登机牌。
Going one step further, these apps also let passengers quickly find new options if their flights are canceled or delayed. And they also serve as a retail platform for airlines to offer other services, upgrades, car rentals or hotels.
再进一步，如果航班取消或延误，这些应用程序还能让乘客很快找到新选择。它们也是零售平台，航空公司可以通过它们提供其他服务、发布最新消息、租车或订酒店。
One of the consequences of this new technological ecosystem is a fragmentation of the travel market. In practical terms this means travelers need dozens of different apps to manage their trips — airlines, hotels, rental cars and travel groups all have their own apps for smartphones, and all seek to create unique relationships with travelers that are generally invisible to corporate travel managers.
这种新技术生态系统的一个结果是旅行市场碎片化。通俗地讲就是，旅行者需要几十个不同的应用程序来管理行程——航空公司、酒店、租车公司和旅行社都有自己的智能手机应用程序，都在努力与旅行者建立独一无二的关系，而公司旅行经理们往往看不到这些。
Dealing with this growing complexity is fast turning into a major concern facing travel managers, according to Ms. Strachan of American Express.
据美国运通的斯特拉汉说，处理这些越来越复杂的应用程序正迅速成为旅行经理们最主要的担忧。
Still, travel managers see many benefits to this new technological environment. The ubiquity of smartphones, for example, is improving a company’s duty of care, a term that refers to its legal obligation to ensure the well-being of its traveling employees. It is now easier to track people on the road and ensure their safety.
不过，旅行经理们也看到了这种新技术环境的很多好处。例如，智能手机的普遍存在有利于公司履行关照义务(duty of care)，它指的是公司确保商旅员工安全的法律义务。现在，追踪旅途中的员工、确保他们的安全变得更容易了。
“It’s gone beyond efficiency. It’s really about effectiveness,” said Eric Bailey, the corporate travel manager at Microsoft, who oversees about 5,000 traveling employees. “It’s not just about cost. It’s also about risk and liability reduction.”
“它不仅有效率，而且确实有效果，”微软公司(Microsoft)的旅行经理埃里克·贝利(Eric Bailey)说。他负责监管约5000名商旅员工。“它不仅能降低成本，还能减少风险和责任。”
Travel managers and business experts all acknowledge that these trends raise concerns about traveler privacy.
旅行经理和商务专家们都承认，这些趋势增加了人们对旅行者隐私的担忧。
“If you’re a business traveler, are you entirely comfortable giving up some privacy in return for better convenience and ease of travel?” said Michael W. McCormick, the executive director of the Global Business Travel Association.
“如果你是商务旅行者，你是否非常乐意放弃部分隐私，以获得旅行的便利和舒适？”全球商务旅行协会的执行主任迈克尔·W·麦考密克(Michael W. McCormick)说。
“If you are provided with a company device, the expectation is that you will leave it turned on,” Mr. Koch said. “But the concern is, what if you are going out for dinner or on a date or whatever? Where is the limit? That is being debated currently.”
“如果公司给了你一个设备，公司是期待你一直开启它的，”科克说，“但问题是，如果你是外出用餐或约会呢？也要开着它吗？界线在哪里？这是目前讨论的重点。”
“People have no problem posting pictures of themselves on Facebook,” he said. “But there is always a level of concern that they don’t want their companies to know where they are.”
“人们不介意在Facebook上发布自己的照片，”他说，“但他们多少还是不想让公司知道自己身在何处。”
About 75 percent of travel and expense budgets, including airfare and hotels, fall under some kind of managed budget. The rest, such as ground transportation, food, fuel and other incidentals, is generally outside what corporations can control. That’s a sector ripe for technological change, said Mr. Bailey of Microsoft.
约有75%的旅行和支出预算，包括机票和酒店，是受到成本控制约束的。其他的，比如地面交通、食物、燃料和其他杂费，通常是公司控制不了的。微软公司的贝利说，针对后面这一部分进行技术改造的时机已成熟。
The best example of this is Uber, the ride-hailing service that has fast become the choice for business travelers, in the United States and abroad. Uber’s ease of use and technology have changed expectations about ground transportation during business trips, which had long been a major challenge for travelers.
最好的例子是叫车软件Uber，它已经很快成为商务旅行者的首选，不管是在美国还是其他国家。Uber的使用便捷性和技术已经改变了人们在商旅中对地面交通的期待。长期以来，地面交通一直是旅行者的主要难题之一。
The transformation has been swift. According to one estimate by Certify, an expense management company, Uber has nearly overtaken taxis in major American cities in terms of expensed business travel. Uber rides accounted for 47 percent of all expensed rides as of this March, up from just 14 percent in January 2014.
这种转变非常迅速。据支出管理公司Certify估计，在美国的主要城市中，Uber在商务旅行消费方面几乎已经超过出租车。今年3月，使用Uber乘车的消费占全部乘车消费的47%，2014年1月，这个比例仅为14%。
The share spent on taxis, limousines and hotel shuttles dropped to 52 percent, from 86 percent, in the same period. Lyft, a rival service, accounted for 1 percent of ground transportation expenses.
出租车、豪华轿车和酒店班车的消费从2014年1月的86%降至今年3月的52%。Uber的竞争对手Lyft在地面交通消费中所占的份额为1%。
“It’s exciting — and somewhat shocking — to see their growth and how they’ve captured corporate spend,” said Bob Neveu, chief executive of Certify, of services like Uber and Lyft. “They have solved the whole ground transportation piece.”
“它们的增长以及它们所占的公司支出份额令人兴奋，也有点令人震惊，”Certify的首席执行官鲍勃·内沃(Bob Neveu)在提到Uber和Lyft等叫车软件时说，“它们解决了整个地面交通问题。”
The rise of the sharing economy presents a new challenge to corporate managers. It raises new questions about liability — Uber cars, for instance, do not always meet all local licensing and insurance requirements. Similar questions, too, are being raised by other services like Airbnb, the online home rental service.
分享经济的崛起给公司经理们提出了新的挑战。它带来了新的责任问题。例如，Uber的车辆并非都符合所有的当地许可和保险要求。其他服务也存在类似问题，例如在线租房服务Airbnb。
“This is one of the big battles in the industry around these services, and what insurance or liability questions arise,” Mr. McCormick said. “Who is liable if something goes wrong?”
“这类服务的一个大问题是，它们会产生哪些保险或责任问题？”麦考密克说，“如果出了问题，谁来负责？”
“We talk about this like this is new, but the fundamentals are still the same,” he added. “Everybody wants to be effective, everyone wants to get business done, and everybody wants to get home safely.”
“我们说的好像都是新问题，但是基本的东西没变，”他补充说，“大家都想提高效率，都想完成业务，都想平安回家。”