Travel Management - A Practical Guide for Your Business

With employees in most companies having to travel extensively, travel management solutions are crucial for enhancing the company’s overall performance. In this guide, we try to get a better understanding of business travel management, helping companies enhance their overall travel program:

 

When considering a travel management system, we refer to a travel solution that acts as a centre for managing each aspect of business travel. This includes everything that a business traveller must   consider when planning a work trip, like-

• Booking flights
• Making hotel reservations
• Booking cabs for on-location transfer
• Tracking the travel expenditure
• Managing trip itinerary, and more. 

Choosing the ideal platform that fulfils your company’s travel needs is extremely crucial. It can have a direct impact on the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of your company’s travel program. So, here’s a breakdown of all things considering a travel management company -

Travel management differs from a tourism management system as it involves:

• Organising business travel
• Managing travel expenses, and 
• Creating an effective corporate travel program

Overall, it fulfils the purpose of assisting companies and their employees in optimising their comprehensive travel needs. On the contrary, it ensures that every business travel need is handled properly without impacting the employees’ productivity and the company’s finances.

Furthermore, this travel solution can be defined as a tool that facilitates travel managers in:

• Making bookings 
• Monitoring employees’ T&E, and
• Analysing travel data

The various facets of this system include creating travel policies, generating real-time reports, accessing and managing inventories, and managing the entire corporate travel of a company.

 

A system managing business travel is essential for organising the employees’ travel alongside risk management. Every business needs such travel management services to plan, organise, book, track and analyse the employees’ trips. Thanks to this, it is easier to consolidate the overall travel expenses. This further helps determine the all-inclusive spending, thereby playing a key role in managing the company’s finance. 

 

Let us, therefore, understand the need for such travel solutions: 

 

 

1. Trip type
2. Trip duration 
3. Employee level, and
4. Department 

.. companies can significantly increase policy adherence with the help of an ideal management and online booking tool.

 

 

 

Now that we know why companies should have a management solution for their business trips, let us delve deeper into how to pick the right one for your business travel needs:

 

In order to efficiently and cost-effectively manage company travel, it is recommended to identify the most impactful features in an online tour and travel management system. So, here are the primary features that can easily streamline your business travel and expense management:

Even in companies where travel admins have the responsibility of booking the employees’ travel, it is important to choose a travels management system that offers:

 

• A seamless booking experience
• A user-friendly interface
• Easy navigation
• Booking support whenever necessary.

 

An ideal system for managing company travel not only ensures effective travel policy compliance on all bookings but also makes sure that the travel expenses align with the company’s budget. To achieve this, the right business travel solution helps:

 

• Draft
• Set Up, and
• Integrate Travel Policies with the bookings.

 

The right travel management solution helps businesses set up approval workflows, streamlining business trips and saving employees valuable time. Instead of endlessly waiting for trip approvals, employees can quickly get their trips verified and validated with a business travel solution. The more customisable the workflows are, the more control is offered to the travel managers. 

 

A good business travel partner ensures that you have access to an extensive inventory of flights and hotels. This ensures that your employees choose the options that are in compliance with the company’s policies, increasing saving opportunities.

 

Business travel can be challenging and unpredictable. It is therefore important to invest in a tour and travel management system that is readily available to resolve every traveller issue. Additionally, this support must come at no additional cost and should not upset the company’s financial planning.

 

It helps to utilise travel management companies that easily integrate with your company’s travel spending. This can help track, monitor, and analyse the spending patterns within your organisation. This, in turn, helps you make more informed decisions regarding your travel budget. 

 

Another crucial feature of business travel booking tools is the reporting capability. When so many employees in a company travel often, it can be challenging to manually keep track of the travel expenses of:

 

• A team or department 
• A specific time period
• A project
• Non-compliant bookings
• Spending on client interactions and business events, among several others.

Real-time report generation of all this data is an essential feature of a travel management platform. It offers an all-comprehensive overview of the company’s spending to the administration.

Also Read: 10 Trip Management Tips for Successful Business Travel

 

By now, we are sure you understand the need to invest in the right travel management solution. It not only offers a significant advantage by reducing travel costs but also saves time. It makes the company's travel strategy more robust by offering easy data analysis and detailed real-time reports.

myBiz streamlines a company's travel program with all the aforementioned features along with its revolutionary tech-driven platform. All of this combined removes the hassles of corporate travel and reduces the responsibilities of a travel manager. This consequently enables them to focus on more critical tasks that contribute to the growth of their business.

 

Q1. What is the travel management system?

Ans. A system that manages every component of an employee’s business travel is defined as a travel management system.

Q2. Why is travel management important?

Ans. Companies need efficient management of their employees’ travel as it reduces costs while resolving the challenges that accompany business trips.

Q3. What are the 2 types of travel management company?

Ans. The two primary types of travel managing companies are online and offline agencies. While an online travel agency offers efficiency, offline agencies operate conventionally through manual processes.

Q4. What is the objective of travel management?

Ans. Business trip management aims to ensure that a company's travel requirements are easily accessible while also offering convenience to business travellers.

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