Corporate travel management can be a nightmare for admins and managers, as one has to look after several factors that may or may not be under one’s control. Flight delays, natural calamities, political disturbances, an outbreak of an epidemic, and local unrest are only a few aspects that can devastate the very purpose of business travel.
Without a well-established framework of corporate travel management, companies can find it difficult to organize and handle business trips and related expenditures. With a dedicated TMC and custom travel management strategy, travel managers and administrators can remain in control of business travel end to end. With efficient help at disposal, managers can ensure that employees are following the travel policy and remain safe during their travel.
What is corporate travel meaning?
Corporate travel is the term used to describe the journeys made by a corporate employee in search of new prospects, and opportunities, or to render a service. There are two kinds of business trips: managed and unmanaged. Unmanaged corporate travel includes organizing the trips internally in the absence of a reliable reservation system. Managed corporate travel entails contracting out business travel to TMCs with cutting-edge booking systems.
Key benefits of corporate travel for companies
- Helps in business travel expansion and development
- Better client support and customer engagement
- Assist in collaboration and team building
- Business trips helps in expanding the corporate network
- Enhances the brand image
Key benefits of corporate travel for employees
- Helps in professional development of the employee
- Assist in relationship building and networking
- Travel results in skill enhancement of the employee
- Increased job satisfaction and ensures work life balance
- Helps in cultural richness and expose to new markets
Benefits of the corporate travel program
The key benefits of using the right corporate travel management company and program are:
- Reduces the complexity of corporate tours
- It saves time and money of the corporate
- It makes the business trip more effective as employees can focus on their tasks more sharply
Corporate travel management challenges and their solutions
1. Attending to a flood of requests
Major organizations outsource the job to a dedicated corporate travel agency with a corporate manager within the business. However, small businesses overlook the importance of the former. They assign the responsibility of monitoring business travel to someone in the office and end up spending more of their time and money. Further, corporate travel management is a routine activity in organizations relying on the sales department to get business worldwide. In such cases, travel managers have to deal with various employee requests pouring in different formats. The requests may be through simple telephonic conversations, text messages, or emails. This unorganized method can lead to stressing the person at job and making expensive bookings. The simple way to eliminate this problem is to hire a corporate travel agency.
2. Approval tracking
Most companies have a system in place to track approvals for travel requests. These approvals are as per the employee levels. The department head is usually the final authority to approve someone’s travel request. A CEO’s approval may be mandatory for a few companies. Lack of adherence to the approval process can cause chaos and affect the itineraries of employees and the company’s business. An efficient corporate travel management company can use platforms like Paxes to help companies create a proper path for requests and approvals.
3. Cost control
According to several reports, corporate travel accounts for the largest portion of business expenditure. Corporate trips are crucial for business growth but constant canceling and booking can cause a significant strain on the company’s bottom line. Further, booking expensive flights and hotels when cheap ones are available with the same facilities can lead to a dent in the monetary management. Therefore, to avoid such situations one can opt for a reliable TMC equipped advanced booking platform. These corporate travel management platforms help to find the best packages even at the peak time.
4. Shifting responsibilities
A company can achieve remarkable travel planning and management resilience by allowing employees to plan their journeys. It makes employees feel more responsible and optimizes travel expenses to reduce costs. The decision will also reduce the additional burden of travel management on the office staff. Entrusting intermarries to employees who are going to travel is more practical than asking someone in the office who has no exposure to business travel. Established corporate travel management companies provide advanced AI-backed solutions to make this a reality.
5. Simplifying corporate travel
A restraining travel process can take away the joy of traveling. It can defeat the very purpose of setting business trips when employees have to go through a complex procedure. The following actions can create a more flexible environment to inspire employees to undertake business travels without hassles.
- Reduce the number of perplexing rules
- Reduce unnecessary approvals and emails
- Eliminate the need to fill out forms manually
- Improve clarity of the process
Emerging trends in corporate travel
- Today, bleisure travel is more common as it increase the overall satisfaction of the employee
- Remote work has become a world wide accepted culture
- Governments and organizations are focusing on sustainable trips
- Technological advancements have made business travel simple and efficient
- To enhance satisfaction, organizations provide personalized trips
An intuitive corporate travel management company equipped with advanced booking platforms for supporting the travel booking process is the right solution. These platforms provide exceptional booking solutions with real-time flight, hotel, and other charges. Further, TMCs come up with innovative answers to all the complicated corporate travel issues.
Must Read: Top Benefits Of Corporate Travel Management Companies
Corporate Travel FAQs
What is the purpose of corporate travel?
Corporate travels are made to get exposure to new opportunities and services. It also helps in associating foundations with new and existing relationships.
What are the types of corporate travel programs?
Unmanaged and managed corporate travel are the two categories. Unmanaged corporate travel comprises organizing the travels internally in the absence of a reliable reservation system. Managed trips are outsourced to TMCs with pre-booking systems.
What are the challenges of a corporate travel program?
Answering queries of the employees, tracking the approval process, being cost-effective, and simplifying business travel.
How can the cost control challenge in a corporate travel program be solved?
This can be done by hiring a dependable travel management company which has advanced booking systems.
How can corporate travel be simplified?
Decrease the number of rules which can lead to confusion in the future, eliminate the number of steps in the approval process, avoid filling forms manually, and explain the process thoroughly.