It’s a drum I’ll continue to beat, but every company, no matter how small or big their travel spend, should have a straightforward, easy-to-follow travel policy in place.

Perhaps before “you’re on mute” became part of our everyday vocab, travellers were happy to go it alone. But things have changed since the dark days of 2020, and instead of chasing the lowest fares or loyalty points, bookers and travellers are focussed on information, communication, flexibility, sustainability and safety.

There are new questions to ask and answer. For example, what measures has your company put in place to ensure the safety of women travellers? How do you support the health and wellbeing of your team when they’re out on the road? Do you provide opportunities for more sustainable travel?

A well-planned travel policy addresses all these issues, while also balancing the personal preferences of your people. It’ll leave you less exposed to risk, eliminate leakage (aka rogue bookings), and help you get a handle on your travel spend.

Sun Tzu said that if you “sweat more in peace, you bleed less in battle”. And while it may sound dramatic, the truth is if you spend a little time and effort getting your travel policy right, you’re setting yourself up for massive gains (and a lot less stress) in the long run.

Here are just five reasons to lay the groundwork now:

It’s the glue that keeps everything together

In today’s global business environment, the old ‘nine-to-five’ model is no more. Instead, organisations are juggling office-based employees, staff who are working from home, and consultants and teams that are spread across continents. Throw in tight budgets, new sustainability goals and ongoing COVID-19 complexities and there is a lot to consider.

A travel policy ensures that your team knows exactly how to book; who signs off on travel; the process for managing and submitting expenses; your company’s safety protocols; and what to do in case of an emergency. There is no room for interpretation, and your policy will become the glue that holds your entire travel programme together – making life easier for everyone involved.

Even ‘baby steps’ make a big difference

Drawing up a travel policy shouldn’t be a daunting or onerous process. In fact, a really solid ‘starter policy’ just covers the basics, like:

• Are there any restrictions on who travels where, whether it’s locally or internationally? In other words, are any destinations regarded as high risk?
• Are there any restrictions on travel during certain periods, for example, during an audit or at financial year end? And how long can your travellers be out of the office?
• How should business trips be booked? Online or with a preferred TMC?
• Are there any preferred partners when it comes to flights, accommodation and car hire?
• Who’s responsible for signing off travel – and what is the process?
• How do travellers submit their expenses, and what can (and can’t) be claimed back?

It’ll save you money

Bottom line? Having a travel policy in place is still the number one way a business can save money. And the numbers don’t lie.

With a new travel policy in hand, a client of ours, Angus Knight, managed to save:

• £10K annually on accommodation; and
• £15K a year on airfares; and
• 47% of their total travel spend by switching to our online booking tool.

By mandating and consolidating their travel spend with preferred suppliers, they suddenly had access to volume discounts, exclusive rates and plenty of perks. Crucially though, they were able to eliminate leakage – where money is lost, often invisibly, because there are no guidelines (or accountability) in place in terms of how, where and when employees can book travel.

It helps with planning, booking and reporting

A good travel policy also supports a good online booking platform, and vice versa. With Corporate Traveller’s Melon, travel bookers have access to a wide range of travel content – all aligned with your company’s travel policy and goals. What does this mean? Not only will booking and managing

travel become a whole lot simpler for travellers and bookers alike but suddenly you’ll have access to clean workable data, which is a powerful tool.

As Angus Knight realised, full visibility over your travel spend means you’re able to gather insights into your company’s travel behaviour, identify potential savings, manage your budget, and report with confidence.

In this risky era, it’s more important than ever

COVID aside, business travel can be unpredictable. Any travel policy needs to cover traveller safety and wellbeing. For example, how will you keep in touch with your travellers while they are on the road? How will you track everyone’s whereabouts for safety and security purposes? What is the emergency protocol should something happen?

Trust your TMC to help you develop a comprehensive risk management strategy that includes everything from how many travellers can fly on the same flight to insurance and medical cover.

Honestly, a travel policy should be the cornerstone of your travel programme. It’s a living document that should be reviewed and updated regularly to meet your organisation’s changing needs and sustainability goals.

No SME should be without one, which is why we’ve covered it in Corporate Traveller’s SME Corporate Travel Toolkit. This free resource will give you pointers on how to craft the perfect travel policy, where to find savings without compromising traveller safety, the pitfalls of unmanaged travel and so much more.

Read more:
5 Reasons every company needs a travel policy

When it comes to business travel, most SMEs are itching to get back on the road! But this uptick in demand combined with lingering airline capacity issues, not to mention increasing fuel costs, means higher prices – at a time when most business’ budgets are under pressure.

Luckily, there are ways to make significant savings on business trips. It means making the shift from unmanaged travel to managed travel (in other words, partnering with the right travel management company) but you’ll reap the benefits when it comes to both time and money.

These days, booking travel isn’t actually about getting the cheapest rate. It’s about the T&Cs, flexibility and ease of booking – how does five minutes instead of 50 sound? Then there’s the access to an impressive range of deals and fares to think about, and instant support if a flight gets cancelled or needs to be rearranged.

More than that, it’s about looking at your costs from a higher vantage point and making savings across every step of the journey, from pre booking to what’s happening a month down the line.

Here are 7 ways to save time and money on business travel.

Look into your data

Imagine the value you’d get from seeing your actual travel numbers in black and white. Yes, you want to know what you’re spending on flights and hotels but there’s a bigger picture. For example, how often does your team travel? Can it be booked in advance?

There are endless ways of finding efficiencies and identifying small changes (big ones too) in order to get the most out of your travel budget. Our teams find new ways to optimise our customers’ travel spend every day.

Set the rules

Did you know that putting form travel rules, aka a travel policy, in place is the number one way to save money on travel? Let’s be honest, it’s very difficult to keep a handle on costs if everyone can book where, when and what they want.

Boundaries are good. And there don’t need to be many, even the simplest travel policies can make a huge difference.

But it helps to get it all on paper, including:

• The airlines you’d prefer your team to book with
• Guidelines around economy, premier and business class
• If there’s a cap on how much they can spend per night in a hotel
• Who gets to sign off on it all

Take the pressure off your ‘go to’ person

Many SMEs have one person who takes care of all the travel bookings. Often it’s tacked onto their day-to-day responsibilities, but they’re great at it so it’s easy to keep the status quo.

It can be a lot to keep on top of, especially if the team is growing quickly and travel requests are coming in thick and fast.

One of our clients, Holovis (the brains behind theme park rides and AR/VR experiences around the world), discovered this when their team grew from 32 to 125. As an experience design company, they needed to get their engineers and designers travelling across the globe, often in groups, and with multiple stops along the way. It all got a little complicated.

In-house travel bookers carry a lot of responsibility on their shoulders when it comes to managing requests, costs and post-trip admin. And you’ve really got to feel for them if things go wrong.

Corporate Traveller has saved Holovis plenty of time and money by taking care of all their bookings, including last-minute trips and changes. And if there is ever an incident or event (think unexpected border closures) we’re on hand to bring their travellers home.

Keep your team focused on the day job

Even when things go right, booking travel on the internet isn’t the best use of your team’s time. It can take up to 49 minutes (or more) to book a business trip on the internet by the time you’ve searched, compared prices, checked availability and booked. With a TMC onboard you’ll be able to do it in five minutes (and get the best available prices on the day).

To be blunt, is Mary in Sales spending too much time on InsertAirlineHere.com, when she should be closing deals or running sales training?

Trade SOS calls for 24-hour support

Why when things go wrong, is it always after hours? Bosses and travel arrangers get an SOS call from a distressed traveller late on a Saturday evening. Not how you want to spend your weekend – on hold to a call centre!

With the right travel partner, you’ll be never in that position. Dedicated after-hours support teams mean your travellers can go direct to the experts.

Make any crisis that bit more manageable

How do you even begin to measure the stress that unexpected travel changes or incidents causes your team, especially if they’ve been travelling through COVID? It’s not something you have to consider if you have a managed travel programme in place.

In any crisis, big or small, a TMC will take care of all the admin and arrangements as quickly and painlessly as possible. And they’ll ensure the related costs don’t go OTT!

It’s nice to know that when things go pear-shaped, a travel expert can take the reins.

Knowledge is power

In fact, this travel expertise is invaluable. You might be a pro at launching a start-up or running your business…but travel in 2022 is whole new ball game.

Our team has tonnes of experience and industry knowledge – and all the travel connections you could hope for (if things don’t go according to plan, we can get fees waived).

Knowledge is power. It’s why we’ve put together a SME Corporate Travel Toolkit. It’ll give you pointers on how to craft the perfect travel policy, where to find savings without compromising traveller safety, the pitfalls of unmanaged travel and so much more.

Read more:
7 ways to save time and money on business travel

Business travel is back! In fact, the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) believes that global business travel spend will reach 2019 levels by 2024, a full year earlier than previously predicted.

It’s an exciting time. Even more so because it’s the small to mid-sized companies powering the recovery, rather than the corporate giants.

On the other hand, managing travel is more complicated than you think when it’s for multiple people, and it’s a little more complex right now. Think border closures, travel restrictions and Covid regulations. It’s daunting – and time consuming – for that one person that books travel for everyone in your company.

A business making 50 travel bookings per month is losing over £10,000 annually on wasted time by doing it themselves (that’s our own calculations). It can take as long as 49 minutes to research and book even the most straightforward trip online. And a company can spend up to 10% of their travel budget on change and cancellation fees alone.

Most SMEs don’t have the time to manage their own travel, especially when the team expands quickly and they’re travelling to all corners of the world.

That’s exactly what happened to Bennett Aviation when they had a growth spurt. Suddenly, booking travel whenever and wherever they wanted became far too much for one person to handle. There was little way of easily tracking where people were at any given time and how much it was all costing. Processes were clunky and it wasn’t long until the PA at Bennett was swamped with complicated travel requests and changes.

But don’t fear! There are ways you can get your business travel under control.

Understand the frustrations your team face

Ever been stuck on the phone to an airline call centre? It can take hours when there’s a major incident. It’s a big pain, especially if you’re a traveller stuck in a country or if you’re the executive assistant that has travel tacked onto their regular day-to-day duties. No one wants to spend all that time on hold during what’s already a stressful time.

Imagine if someone needed help out of work hours or over the weekend. Who do they call at your company, what support do they receive? Given how the last two years have been, it’s a big thing to consider.

Then think of the admin. The receipts, the expenses and keeping track of vouchers and credits. How much time is being wasted by travellers and the finance team making sure everything’s in order? How do you know the true cost of business trips once you total up the airline, hotel, taxis and meals?

Reduce the stress on people and risk

Safety and wellbeing is a big deal now across all parts of business. And it doesn’t stop when your team are out on the road travelling to other countries.

If your travellers are booking their own trips, how do you know where they’re travelling to, who they’re booking with, and whether they’re at risk? Scary. As their employer, you’re ultimately responsible for your people when they are out on the road.

There’s companies and technology out there to help. It makes all the difference for travellers to know you have their back, especially if there’s an emergency and they need to be contacted and to travel home.

Know what you’re spending

Business travel usually features in the top three spots on a company’s profit and loss statement; it’s a big spend category. Which means it’s important to keep a handle on your spend and identify savings wherever you can.

How do you start? It’s all in the data, such as:

• Annual spend on flights
• Annual spend on hotels
• Popular routes flown eg London – Berlin or Edinburgh – New York

When you have that information to hand, you have a base to start saving money in all kinds of ways. A specialist business travel agency like Corporate Traveller has all the tactics and contacts to help. If you’re using an airline regularly, we can talk to the airline and get preferential prices. Dashboards can show you booking information in real-time and you can pull reports in minutes.

Reconsider booking on loads of different websites

Connor in Sales should be focused on his clients instead of spending hours searching for flights and hotels. Endlessly searching the internet and having all those open tabs is wasting so much time. With the right tech it can take less than five minutes to book a trip (including the hotel and car hire).

We’ve estimated that would save you on average £12.96 per booking if you’re using a tool like ours. Plus when you’re thinking about data, with everything booked in one place you can get discounts and access to special corporate deals and perks you can’t get anywhere else. It’s a win-win however you look at it.

Pick a travel partner that works for you

Does your business use Teams or Slack? Quickbooks or Sage? Like all platforms, they have their own pros and cons, capabilities and features. You chose the best tool to suit your needs.

Travel companies, aka travel management companies (TMCs) in our world, are no different. You can choose to work with a local travel company, a global TMC or to book travel through multiple websites and providers. Ultimately though, you need to consider three things:

1. Culture – choose a company that aligns with your vision and values
2. Tech capabilities – never settle for less than what your business needs
3. Pricing, including hidden costs

There’s no doubt that small to mid-sized companies will drive the UK’s post-pandemic economic recovery. That’s why we’ve created a SME Corporate Travel Toolkit. It will give you pointers on where to start with formalising travel booking processes, where to find savings without compromising traveller safety, the pitfalls of booking randomly online and so much more.

Read more:
5 ways to get your corporate travel under control