Determining Reimbursable Travel Expenses for Employees
March 13, 2023
Innovative Travel Management Company
In 2019, 464 million domestic business travel trips contributed $791 billion to the U.S. economy.
Unfortunately, the last three years took a hit due to the pandemic. However, according to corporate travel management trends, the future of domestic business looks promising. Experts suggest that figures will rise back to pre-pandemic levels over the next few years.
With domestic business travel on the rise, now is the best time to consider your future business travel programs. However, business travel management can be a disaster waiting to happen, especially for larger companies with hundreds of employees. But hiring a travel management company (TMC) can take control of your company’s business travel needs.
In this article, we answer questions like, ‘what is a TMC?’ We also explain how corporate travel management can bring your company’s travel to the next level. Continue reading to get ahead of the competition.
TMCs are specialized travel agencies that assist in managing an organization’s corporate or business travel program. They are typically tasked with establishing a travel policy, dealing with vendors, making bookings, and helping to monitor and manage travel costs and expenses.
The critical difference between a TMC and a travel agency is that TMCs work directly with businesses to analyze and streamline all aspects of their existing travel programs, as opposed to travel agencies that primarily assist clients with booking business travel.
Before diving into the benefits of corporate travel management, let’s discuss the answer to, ‘what does a TMC do?’ The short answer is that they help manage corporate travel in a way that emphasizes efficiency.
The more complex answer is that it depends on your company’s business travel management needs. TMCs do more than just make flight or hotel reservations. They can develop corporate travel policies, manage finances, and handle all travel logistics. Corporate travel management improves nearly every aspect of business travel.
Here are just some of the responsibilities held by a travel management company:
TMCs can assist with travel preparations, including flight reservations, ticketing, and advice on best fares. If you book directly through an airline, you’re likely to get charged higher fees if you wish to change your itinerary. A TMC can make the changes for you without any extra charges.
TMCs can find the best possible rates and even negotiate with different service providers on your behalf. They have the expertise in handling the task of negotiation and can find you the best rate — one you might not have been able to get yourself.
As a busy business owner, you don’t have the time to scour sites to find the best accommodation for your employees. A travel management company looks for all the available accommodation options within your budget and makes the best choice for you.
Transportation is essential to getting your employees safely from one location to another. A TMC can book your transportation needs well in advance, including rental car hire, airport transfer, and train or bus tickets.
Planning events and conferences can be time-consuming and complex. TMCs can organize meetings and events to help you reduce costs and make your business events more profitable.
A travel management company will take control of tracking and reporting your company’s travel-related expenses. They can also work with you to understand your business travel management needs and customize a corporate travel policy that meets those requirements.
A TMC will provide a duty of care to ensure your employees’ safety and that the proper procedures and travel policies are in place and understood. They will provide 24/7 support to your employees by monitoring delays, disruptions, and disasters.
A travel management company can benefit your business in more ways than one. There are quite a few benefits to using a TMC instead of keeping your efforts in-house.
Let’s take a look at the best ones:
Business trips are a high cost for any company, domestic or abroad. TMCs are more likely to focus on cost savings while ensuring your employees remain safe.
Your business must establish a travel policy for corporate travel risk management and keeping your employees happy and safe. With a clear policy, everyone knows what is acceptable and unacceptable. TMCs can assist you with creating a robust policy that meets all of your requirements.
A travel management company can make your entire booking process much smoother than if you were to do it in-house. This is especially true for larger companies with more employees than you can count.
Working with travel experts can give you access to corporate rates, partnership perks, and expert account management. If you like saving money, hiring a TMC is how to do it.
Travel plans don’t always go the way you want them. TMCs provide rapid 24/7 service to help you with business travel management when you need it the most.
Travel management is often considered an uncomplicated process. But it’s surprisingly easy to overlook something important such as visa requirements or ground transportation when you are coordinating dozens or hundreds of trips per year. A travel management company takes care of everything that needs to be prepared before, during, and after.
Your company may rely on an in-house team for all of your corporate travel management. They may also expect employees to plan their own trips. However, that doesn’t mean that your business travel needs are completely met.
With the best service, hassle-free programs, any-time support, and more, a travel management company can make business travel a breeze.
Your company likely has experienced professionals for business travel management. A TMC has the expertise to make their jobs more efficient.
They have the most current knowledge of every aspect of the travel industry. Their knowledge and experience can offer you priceless insight. You can use this to build your corporate travel policies and business travel budget.
While learning new systems and policies can be challenging for some, it doesn’t have to be. The right corporate travel management company offers comprehensive training to ensure all users feel comfortable with the new system.
Some companies offer short videos online for learning while others allow you to schedule one-on-one training sessions that are convenient for your schedule. The best companies offer both options for optimal learning.
The right travel management company has been around for decades. They’ve spent this time closely analyzing travel trends and fluctuations as well as storing that data for ongoing use.
This means that a TMC doesn’t just bring you knowledge, but it brings you far more data and resources than you could acquire within your company alone. This means less time and stress spent making the best arrangements.
Employees should focus on their jobs, not on making travel arrangements. With everything that goes into planning a trip, employees lose hours of their time making the necessary arrangements. It’s even worse for multiple trips.
This approach wastes valuable time that employees could use to focus on more lucrative tasks such as conversing with clients or preparing for their meetings while traveling. A travel management company can save this time.
When employees have to navigate the complexities of corporate travel policies and other nitty-gritty of business travel management, their performance can be affected. Instead of focusing their attention on the reason for their trip, they’re worrying about travel.
A TMC considers everything necessary to help an employee remain safe, secure, and comfortable during their trip. This allows them to focus on their job instead of the logistics of their travel.
A business travel budget is one of the most important considerations in corporate travel. A travel management company can optimize the budget in the ways listed below.
These resources are invaluable to you and your company. While you may feel confident your team can accomplish the same results, keep in mind that this type of expertise takes decades to establish.
One common reason why companies delay investing in corporate travel management is the added cost. They believe it’s more cost-effective to keep travel management within the company.
While the services of a travel management company come at a cost, they’re more than offset by the benefits. This occurs as a result of a combination of travel savings, refocused employee time, and access to greater resources.
Business travel management needs don’t stop once the last booking is made, and the best travel management companies understand that. For this reason, you must work with a company that’s available 24/7.
They can help monitor for potential flight delays or other types of travel disruptions and adjust accordingly. This also means they’re available to initiate and track two-way communication in case of travel emergencies.
Without adequate corporate travel policies, tracking travel expenses is complex and strenuous. This can affect a company’s ability to maintain compliance with its policies and remain within budget.
A travel management company keeps everything in one place so noncompliance isn’t even an option. Since management companies learn preferences and habits, employees don’t have to sacrifice comfort for compliance.
Even when the business travel is complete, the work is far from over. Finance teams still need to procure the relevant data for all the corporate travel expenses and reconcile the numbers with credit card statements. This is challenging with multiple sources.
Instead of compiling numbers from multiple reports from multiple employees and booking platforms, a corporate TMC can translate all expenses into one report. This makes for better business travel budget planning.
A boutique corporate TMC can help you optimize your business travel budget, meet your business travel needs, and consolidate data. The investment more than pays for itself with these outcomes and more.
Here are seven things you should look out for when selecting a TMC to handle your corporate travel:
Your travel management company should integrate the right travel technologies for your business travel management. For example, the right software can help you stay in touch with your travelers and monitor any potentially dangerous situations.
It can also help enforce your travel policy, track and monitor trends, and identify inefficiencies.
All TMCs are unique, and it’s essential to find one that’s a good fit. Telios can keep you within your budget, set up a travel policy, and find the most efficient logistics solution to get your employees from point A to point B.
A travel management company deals with all your corporate travel plans’ planning, execution, and logistics. Are you ready to schedule your next corporate trip? Then let us help you!
Telios are the travel experts. We will work with you to provide a duty of care, data analytics, and 24/7 travel support for your employees during their corporate trips.
Better manage corporate travel with Telios. Focus on your business while we focus on the rest.
For help planning your next business trip, contact us today. Find out how we can help your business achieve significant yearly savings!
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