Why do you Need a Business Travel Program?

As your organization grows, the number of business trips for client meetings, supplier visits, and conferences increases. Managing these trips can become challenging, with issues like booking errors, inconsistent travel policies, and rising costs. 

To handle this rise in travel requests effectively, you need a framework that streamlines the process, cuts costs, and ensures policy compliance. A business travel program helps achieve this.

A corporate travel program involves policies and procedures designed to manage travel efficiently. Its main goals are to reduce travel expenses and improve the travel experience for employees. It covers everything from booking flights and hotels to trip approvals, itinerary creation, expense management, and traveler safety.

You can manage your travel program through an external travel agency or by investing in travel management software. Whether you run a startup or a large company, here are six reasons why a travel program is essential for your business.

What is a Business Travel Program?

A corporate travel program is a system that helps companies manage their travel activities and expenses. It includes rules and guidelines for booking flights, hotels, and car rentals. This program often partners with travel management companies (TMCs) and uses travel management software (TMS) to make booking and tracking easier. 

Key parts of the program include special deals with airlines, hotels, and car rental services, as well as tools to track and manage expenses. The program aims to keep travel costs down, ensure employees follow company travel policies, and make travel safe and pleasant for employees. It also provides real-time data to help companies make informed decisions about their travel spending.

A business travel program helps streamline:

Corporate travel bookings

Simplifies booking flights, hotels, and car rentals through a single platform, ensuring consistency and ease of use.

Policy Compliance

Ensures all travel bookings adhere to company travel policies, minimizing non-compliant expenses.

Negotiated Rates

Provides access to discounted rates with preferred airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies, reducing overall travel costs.

Expense Management

Tracks and manages travel expenses efficiently, facilitating quick reimbursements and accurate reporting.

Traveler Safety and Support

Offers 24/7 support and real-time updates, ensuring the safety and well-being of travelers during their trips.

Benefits of Having a Business Travel Program

A  travel program for business offers numerous benefits that enhance the overall travel experience for companies and their employees. Here are eight key benefits:

It helps you increase efficiency

A central system for booking and managing travel saves time for employees and managers. Automated tasks reduce administrative work, letting staff focus on their main jobs.

With the itilite corporate travel platform, employees can book all their travel arrangements through a single, user-friendly tool. This centralized system lets employees plan their own trips while staying within company travel policies, and it saves a lot of time by bypassing the need for manual approvals.

It helps you save money

Negotiated rates with airlines, hotels, and car rental agencies lower travel costs. Tools like flight re-shopping and managing unused tickets also help save money.

It improves policy compliance

Ensuring all bookings follow company policies prevents unauthorized spending. Automated alerts and approvals keep everything in check, reducing rule violations.

It expedites reimbursement

Integrated expense management makes submitting and approving travel expenses quicker, leading to faster reimbursements. This improves cash flow and employee satisfaction.

It helps you make informed decisions

Real-time data on travel spending helps make informed decisions. Detailed reports show trends, optimize budgets and ensure compliance.

It helps keep your business travelers safe

24/7 support and real-time updates ensure employee safety. This helps manage risks and respond to emergencies effectively.

It improves the experience of business travelers

Easy booking processes, a wide range of travel options, and personalized support make travel better for employees.

Suggested Read:

Features of Best Corporate Travel Management Software

What to Include in a Business Travel Program?

1. Centralized Software To Simplify Bookings

Booking travel can be tricky and time-consuming for employees. They often need to visit multiple websites and compare many options. To make this easier, include centralized booking software in your travel program for business. 

This software can be managed by an external travel agency or allow employees to book directly. Investing in travel management software provides a single platform with a wide range of flight and hotel options, simplifying the booking process and saving time. This makes arranging travel much easier and more efficient for everyone.

2. Negotiated Suppliers To Save Money

Reducing travel costs is crucial for any organization. To achieve this, you can book cost-effective options and secure corporate discounts by partnering with airlines and hotels. However, employees often lack the time to search for the best deals or access lists of partnered vendors.

To address this, your corporate travel program should include an easy way for employees to find affordable booking options. One approach is to build a comprehensive inventory of service providers offering the best deals and corporate discounts.

Alternatively, consider hiring a Travel Management Company (TMC) to handle your travel program. A TMC has experts who can set budgets, negotiate with vendors for better rates, and manage your travel arrangements. Some TMCs also offer corporate travel management software with access to a wide range of low-cost carriers (LCCs), helping you save even more.

3. Comprehensive Travel Policy To Increase Policy Compliance 

Ensuring travel policy compliance is crucial for maintaining your company’s financial health. Non-compliance often occurs because employees find the guidelines confusing or cannot access the policy during booking.

To address this, your travel program should include a well-documented and clear travel policy. This policy should detail budget limits, travel guidelines, and reimbursement plans based on departments, employee levels, and destinations.

Once you have a comprehensive policy in place, use travel management software to enforce it. This software can be configured to reflect your travel policy and offer booking options that align with the guidelines. Employees can see in real-time whether their flight and hotel choices comply with the policy during the booking process, helping to ensure adherence and avoid costly deviations.

Suggested Read: https://www.itilite.com/in/blog/draft-corporate-travel-policy/

4. Duty of Care Plan To Enhance Travelers’ Safety 

Since the onset of Covid-19, ensuring travelers’ safety has become a top priority in corporate travel. Studies show that 84% of travelers prefer to travel with proper safety measures in place. To keep your employees safe during their trips, implement a comprehensive duty of care plan as part of your travel program for business.

A duty of care plan should include:

• Destination Risk Assessment

Evaluate the safety and health risks associated with each destination.

• Health Check-Ups

Implement regular health screenings and vaccinations as needed.

• Emergency Contacts

Provide employees with a list of local emergency contacts, including medical facilities and consulates.

• Travel Advisories

Share up-to-date travel advisories and safety information relevant to the destination.

• Insurance Coverage

Ensure employees have adequate travel insurance covering medical emergencies and other risks.

• Emergency Procedures

Outline clear procedures for employees to follow in emergencies or unexpected situations.

• 24/7 Support

Offer round-the-clock support for travelers to assist with any issues or emergencies they may encounter.

5. T&E Approval Workflow for Streamlined Operations 

A clear travel and expense (T&E) approval workflow is essential to prevent unnecessary delays in trip approvals. Many organizations face issues with multiple, sometimes unclear, approval stages. For example, an international trip might need approvals from various managers and possibly “Top Management,” which could include the CEO, CFO, or VP. This can result in requests ending up at the wrong executive’s desk and getting stuck in a back-and-forth process.

To address this, your business travel program should include a well-defined approval workflow. Here’s how to set it up:

• Define Approval Stages

Clearly outline the permissions needed based on employee levels, trip destinations, and durations. Specify approvers for both domestic and international trips.

• Designate Backup Approvers

Appoint backup approvers to handle requests if the primary approver is unavailable.

• Minimize Touchpoints

Reduce the number of approval stages to speed up the request processing and prevent delays.

Alternatively, you can use travel management software to automate approval workflows. This software streamlines the process by defining approval stages based on employee levels, trip details, and destinations. It reduces manual handling, minimizes approval touchpoints, and ensures requests are directed to the correct approvers, speeding up approval times and avoiding delays.

6. Self-Booking Tool for Employee Satisfaction

When travel agents handle bookings, they might prioritize policy compliance over employee preferences, leading to dissatisfaction. To address this, include a self-booking option in your business travel program. Allowing employees to book their own flights and hotels according to their preferences boosts satisfaction.

Invest in travel management software that supports travel policy configuration and uses predictive analytics to offer tailored booking options. This ensures employees can select their preferred options while staying within policy guidelines, improving their overall travel experience.

7. Tools to Get Travel Analytics for Optimizing Your Program

Your travel program should have a process for collecting and analyzing travel data. This includes gathering information on travel spending, policy compliance, and booking trends. By retrieving this data, you can understand where your money is going, how well your employees are following travel policies, and identify patterns in travel expenses.

Analyzing this data helps you make informed decisions, optimize travel budgets, and find areas for cost savings. It also allows you to adjust travel policies as needed to better manage expenses and improve compliance.

To streamline this process, you can use travel management software. This software automatically collects and analyzes travel data. It provides you with detailed reports and insights to enhance your travel program.

A few examples of these reports include:

• Expense Reports

Shows detailed costs for flights, hotels, and meals, helping track and control spending.

• Travel Compliance Reports

Highlights how well employees follow travel policies, noting any rule violations.

• Travel Spend Analysis

Summarizes overall travel costs and spending patterns, identifying areas for savings.

• Traveler Itinerary Reports

Provides details of employees’ travel plans, both current and past.

• Supplier Performance Reports

Assesses how well airlines, hotels, and other vendors perform, aiding in negotiations and vendor selection.

Suggested Read:

How to Draft a Corporate Travel Policy

Optimize Your Business Travel Program with itilite

These are a few reasons you need a travel program for business in your organization. There are multiple ways to administer and execute a corporate travel program. You can outsource the flight and hotel bookings to an external travel agency and let your employees handle other activities like itinerary creation, expense management, etc.

Alternatively, you can take the load off your employees’ shoulders by investing in a business travel management solution like itilite. 

itilite integrated travel and expense management software offers quick and easy bookings, extensive flight and hotel inventory, advanced travel analytics, travelers’ location tracking to ensure safety, end-to-end expense management, and much more.

Get a free demo of itilite to experience all these features. 

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