The chief executive of behavioural change consultancy Influence at Work is to give the keynote speech at next month’s Business Travel Show in London.
Steve Martin co-authored the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Business Week International bestselling book “Yes! 50 Secrets from the Science of Persuasion”.
He is also a columnist for the British Airways Business Life magazine. Martin is scheduled to give his keynote speech from 10am-11am on February 22.
He will discuss how businesses can achieve travel programme goals when people are spread across regions, cultures, and time zones.
He will also demonstrate how the psychology of persuasion can influence customers to stay within policy, book travel in advance and travel efficiently.
Martin said: “There is a set of universal principals for successful influence, and we can learn them, implement them and become skilled ourselves.
“They work in every context, in every interaction, across cultures and across industries. It’s not that there’s a set of principles unique to business travel; the key is to understand how the universal principles apply to your industry. That’s primarily what the focus of the presentation at the show is going to be.”
Business Travel Show event director David Chapple said: “By helping businesses and business leaders think about their communications and influence Steve has delivered some impressive results.
“He has applied his universal principles to influence outcomes in many different sectors and scenarios, including helping the UK government to persuade more people to file their tax returns on time and advising a leading hotel group on how to encourage their guests to reuse their towels.”
Also speaking at the show will be Keesup Choe, chief executive of PredictX, who works with travel managers across Fortune 500 companies to provide predictive insights into their travel programme using AI.
PredictX organises information and combines this with predictive models and workflows to drive and automate decisions.
PredictX and Influence at Work will announce a partnership at the show to combine predictive analytics and behavioural science to enable travel managers to impact their travellers’ behaviour.
Choe said: “Today’s travel managers understand their success depends on their ability to influence people’s behaviour. Travel is unique in that there are thousands of indirect buyers making their own purchasing decisions.
“Positively changing business travellers’ behaviour represents the largest potential for realising saving whilst ensuring traveller satisfaction. We are excited to be partnering with Influence at Work to solve these issues for travel managers.”