Roadmap Ready to Widen its Lanes with New Emburse Go App

With a new name and new ownership, the travel management app developer formerly known as Roadmap is ready to target a broader audience with a scalable offering for small and midsized clientele.

Roadmap first made its splash in the corporate travel industry in 2015, when it took home top honors at BTN's Innovate conference, and since has build up a client base of about 16 large corporate clients—including CT100 companies such as Microsoft, Nike and Merck—altogether representing millions of users. The high-touch service that Roadmap offered, custom-building mobile travel apps blended from a variety of corporate and consumer technology generally was not accessible to anyone but the largest travel programs, Roadmap co-founder Jeroen van Velzen said.

Expense management conglomerate Emburse acquired Roadmap about a year ago, and from that acquisition, the company has built a new tool, Emburse Go, that will be available to companies of all sizes.

"When we first [launched], the first thing everyone wanted when they saw it was to know, 'Can we get it?'" said van Velzen, now Emburse's SVP of solutions strategy. "We're now thrilled to launch it to a much wider audience."

The Emburse Go app is designed provide travelers a "curated experience" throughout their trip, prepopulating itineraries with destination information once a trip is booked through a booking tool or supplier site. That includes risk and safety guidance, information on local transportation and recommendations on tipping and local points of interest. Travelers also can provide reviews through the app, providing data for future recommendations, and travel managers can view data to compare against their performance goals.

In addition, the app provides information on Covid-19 testing requirements, visa requirements and travel advisors and allows corporate managers to communicate safety information and other customized messaging via a self-service desktop portal. The app also provides links for travelers to request assistance during their trip.

Besides being more scalable for SME clients, the tool also is a better fit for SME travel program goals in a world still grappling with the pandemic, compared with when Roadmap first launched, van Velzen said.

"When we first got to market, traveler happiness was only for the early adopters among travel managers," he said. "Coming out of the pandemic, people are going to travel less, so even if you were cost-centric, volumes are going to be lower, and if you decide to go on a trip, you better make sure it's worth your while."

Additionally, Emburse Go taps data from the Greenhouse Gas Protocol so travelers can see the carbon footprint of their trips, and companies can see data from all employee trips in a central dashboard. That also is becoming a greater need for SME clients. In the Netherlands, for example, a rule set to go in effect next year will require any company with at least 100 employees to register each employee's carbon emissions, including from business travel, van Velzen said.

Emburse is hoping to bring on at least 100 customers to be the initial users of Emburse Go, which officially launches on Tuesday. Emburse estimates those customers will pay between $10,000 and $100,000 per year, so even those first customers could spell millions in new revenue for the company, according to an Emburse spokesperson.

Roadmap's large customers, meanwhile, will continue to be serviced by what is now the Emburse Go Premier offering, which comes with extra benefits, such as monthly insights and reports for the full travel program.