Many things need to be taken into consideration: airlines, schedules, hotels, costs, online booking tools, etc. In this article, you’ll learn about business trips tools that make corporate travel management a little easier.
Travelers need 24/7 ease of use, convenient and empowering tools that will allow them to book travel with little to no training.
Travel management and procurement staff need tools that allow them to focus on strategic objectives through automation of basic travel reservations and meetings while keeping control of company policy. This allows reporting and forecasting tools that analyze expenses giving travelers ease of use by finding lower fares.
Here are 4 tools for corporate travel management
- Concur Travel & Expense is a mobile expense ledger that allows travelers to book travel and scan their receipts so that the app will classify and analyze the expenses. It allows for control of travel spend, and it is designed to reflect your company policy.
It suits companies traveling $150k/yr or more, allowing for corporate negotiated rates to be loaded (which reduces costs and guides travelers during booking process) to sum it all up, but going deeper into its characteristics, Concur Travel & Expense platform can provide many benefits: improved expense management process by eliminating the errors, paper, and tiresome procedures that go with it; reduces employees research and administrative tasks; gives more control over compliance.
- TripIt is a tool that helps the business traveler by scanning the registered email inboxes to collect travel itineraries. These bookings are imported to the TripIt App, where users can manage a travel calendar. In addition, the traveler can see if there are flight delays, weather, and traffic information for their destination, as well as gate maps.
There are three different versions: the basic one, a Pro one and one for team management only. The Pro version adds to the free formula the option to have mobile notifications, information about alternative flights, etc. As for the manager version, it allows creating areas of interaction and administration for numerous trips.
- Mobile Passport : this app enables US Citizens and Canadian visitors to save time during the entry process at most major US Airports and cruise ports. Officially authorized by US Customs and Border Protection, travelers may submit passport and declaration information via their mobile device. The Mobile Passport app will provide a QR code for every traveler registered in your party as stated in the submitted form. Each traveler then accesses separate, fast lanes in the inspection area.
- Yapta : this dynamic-scanning technology allows for price change tracking up to 48hrs prior to trip date. Your Travel Management Company shares booking data with Yapta and gets notified of air/hotel/car price drops, considering any exchange/cancellation fees. When worth it, the itinerary gets rebooked for a fee. Savings after vendor and service fees are generally bringing 23% yearly savings to companies.
Consider that the possibilities TripIt offers are not usually integrated into this type of travel tools, we have to mention the inclusion of maps, which is a good addition, together with the trip data, employees can discover the areas they are going to visit.
It is also accompanied with information about local matters, which can also be very useful in case there is not too much time to be aware of the forecasts, permitting to be prepared with suitable actions for any event. On the other hand, and in a certain way with the maps, there are directions, details and more about the employees of the place will frequent.
The application can be used from mobile devices and has, as usual in these platforms, up to three different versions: the basic one, a Pro one and one for team management only.