Lyft Banks on Corporate Travel With Alcove Chauffeur Service

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The new offering, announced Thursday (Oct. 15), will see Lyft continue to serve customers of TBR Global Chauffeuring — a Scottish company it acquired last year — while also serving new corporate travel programs, bookers and passengers worldwide.

David Risher, Lyft’s CEO, told The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) that the service is designed to cater to the demand for full days or corporate travel between client meetings, conferences and flights.

“There is an enormous opportunity in executive travel, corporate travel, events,” Risher said. “Right now, it’s just not very well served.”

Lyft says Alcove, set to debut next year, marks another stage in its evolution “beyond on-demand rideshare,” extending footprint into a multi-billion dollar chauffeur market. Alcove will be a separate brand, though Lyft business customers will still be able to use its services, the news release added.

The release cites data from the Global Business Travel Association on the challenges of managing corporate travel programs: 61% of travel buyers say managing travel across regions is difficult, but just 12% have a “consolidated view” of their program from a sole data source.

“Alcove aims to give program managers greater visibility and control, bookers confidence that trips can be reliably managed, and passengers a premium experience built around their needs,” the news release said.

Risher told the WSJ he expects Alcove to eventually become a multi-billion dollar business for Lyft, which took in roughly $18.5 billion in gross bookings last year.

The CEO said Alcove is entering a market primed for upheaval, as executive assistants trying to book these sorts of high-end rides tend to work with a network of smaller chauffeuring businesses whose footprints are limited.

“These services exist out there, but it’s kind of a fragmented market with older technology and typically no real scale advantage,” Risher said.

PYMNTS wrote earlier this year about the evolution of the rivalry between Lyft and chief competitor Uber, which had traditionally revolved around the question of which company could grow faster and subsidize rides for longer.

“The competitive frame has shifted,” that report said. “The market is now mature, profitability matters, and the next frontier is no longer simply moving people from point A to point B. It is about building the operating system for urban mobility, commerce and eventually autonomous transportation.”

Both companies are growing and are leaning into artificial intelligence and autonomous vehicles, though their visions of what comes next are quite different, the report added.