Especially if it means doing so without affecting the performance of your employees or the fulfillment of their duties.
You can take advantage of a plethora of incentive programs on meals, flights, and hotels that can dramatically reduce the overall business travel spend of your company.
Here are some effective methods that will aid you in your pursuit of a cost-effective corporate travel program.
Consider booking ahead of time
Corporate travelers can spend weeks or even months negotiating and agreeing on contracts with clients. Making it virtually impossible to reduce travel and per diem expenses without hindering some business opportunities for your company.
However, you can still achieve savings by anticipating to your employees’ travel needs. So once a business trip plan is confirmed, book the itinerary to secure lower prices and availability.
Also, consider a possible change of plans before reserving. It may make more sense to wait or to pay a little more for bookings that allow you to change dates without incurring further costs.
Avail reward programs and discounts
Most hotels, rental car agencies, and airlines provide discounts to frequent customers. They also have reward programs and other special offers.
Work with your corporate travel agency to get leading rates and private promotions. They can also point you to the best rewards programs. Furthermore, using online booking tools like Concur Travel, which can prioritize preferred vendors, can help you make the most out of the promotions.
Make an effective travel reimbursement policy
Having a comprehensible travel reimbursement policy is also an effective way to diminish traveling expenses. The policy must specify all the details about the allowances, approved vendors and additional instructions relevant to the business traveler.
These rules must be communicated clearly to the employees to prevent misuse of the company’s money and avoid any misunderstandings.
If you want to know what mistakes to avoid when making a Corporate Travel Policy, be sure to check this blog post.
Use a travel management service
You can simplify your business travel process by using a travel management company (TMC). These companies can save you time, stress, and money by providing you preferential rates and enforcing your travel policy electronically.
Along with the monetary benefits, using their service also provides transparency of your travel expense reports.
In addition, the costs associated with a TMC are lower than if you hired a full-time employee to manage your program.
Digitize Travel planning process
Digitalization is fundamental in reducing business travel costs. A coordinated booking, approval, measurement, and risk management process will increase the end-to-end speed of your travel system. Systemization will also nourish your travel agents with streamline insights of travel policy performance; all backed up by data.
Furthermore, a systemized corporate travel software allows businesses to meet duty of care obligations with sound risk management. I.E., travel management platforms feature automation technologies to warn of out-of-policy bookings, dangerous destinations, and security information.
Update the policy on a regular basis
With the increase of disruptive technologies that bring new ways of booking, connecting, and conducting business, old school companies must review their travel policy regularly. Your company must respond to market evolution and capitalize on opportunities for discounts and better management of employee travel expenditure.
Heed to the millennial corporate traveler generation
Traditional employers must address the different preferences of the younger generation to maintain employee satisfaction while achieving travel savings. Millennials travelers have shown they are likely to schedule more leisure days within their itinerary on a corporate trip. These preferences need to be taken into account for optimizing the procedure of policy compliance.
Travel agencies and companies need to work side by side to study the habits and choices of the younger generations of employees and consider these in strategic travel programming.
To summarize, if you are inquiring about how to reduce employee travel spending without compromising your team’s satisfaction. Then it’s in your best interest to hire a TMC.
Reducing travel costs isn’t just cutting one stream of expenses. It’s implementing multiple savings strategies and optimizing your processes to make the most out of all the savings opportunities. Using a travel software can help you immensely by providing valuable data or automating policy compliance and duty of care tasks
