There are many ways to reduce costs in corporate travel, from choosing alternative accommodation solutions to being more flexible with your travel dates. However, one of the main expenses that weighs heavily on corporate travel budgets are the costs that weren’t initially accounted for.
Whether it be because your employees frequently book outside your travel policy or because your policy doesn’t foresee some essential costs, the truth is these small mistakes can quickly turn into big expenses for your company. In this article, we give you our best solutions for the most common mistakes in managing corporate travel.
4 Common errors in corporate travel management and how to fix them
Not having a well-defined corporate travel policy
According to a study by the Global Business Travel Association, when an employee books his own travel without a corporate travel policy in place this can cost a company upwards of €2000 a year.
Without a corporate travel policy in place, companies lose unique opportunities to negotiate special partnerships with hotel chains and airlines. Additionally, a corporate travel policy helps to streamline procedures, thus saving you time when it comes to booking a trip and making your employees more productive.
Not consulting reports
Many times, travel management reports aren’t a priority and, even when they are published, they are never consulted to streamline procedures and optimize costs in corporate travel.
However, setting up simple cost monitoring tools can be fundamental to controlling spending and streamlining procedures for your employees. By collecting this data, you will more easily be able to calculate average spending per type of trip, identify the most frequent trips, and check your most used vendors.
Not considering extra costs
It’s not difficult to structure a budget to cover the main travel expenses. However, there are other costs that can be overlooked and that quickly add up such as fees to access Wi-Fi at airports, parking tickets or taxi fares, among others. Likewise, it’s important to consider things that may go wrong while traveling, come up with a “Plan B” for the most common mishaps, and have a contingency fund to quickly resolve them on the go.
Not contracting a specialized agency
For companies with highly mobile teams, travel management procedures can become complex and time-consuming. By hiring a corporate travel agency, such as RoomsCo, you can enjoy specialized 24/7 support from the initial accommodation booking until the final check-out. When working with us, we take the stress of travel management off your hands so that your team can focus on your core business and become more productive.
