Secret Corporate Travel Tips and Management Advice That Can Save You Money
Fine Tune Your Corporate Travel Policy
At year’s end, it is a good idea to start reevaluating your corporate policies. This includes your corporate travel policies, which in recent years will need a great deal of revising in the wake of the coronavirus and its impact on travel. Evaluate all your items in your policy and modify them as needed. Make sure all involved are clear on any new guidelines set or revised. Identify all new procedures and protocols for your employees.
Establish an Approval Process For Business Trips
One of the easiest ways to reduce your corporate travel spending is to establish a pre-travel approval system in place for every booking. You can also consult with corporate travel planners as another way to establish this approval process.
Be Flexible with Flights
You can save quite a bit of money if you can be flexible on business flight times and dates. When browsing for flights, many airlines websites such as American Airlines have tabs on their website that show you different fares for another time and day for your research flights.
Sign Up For Promotional Alerts
You can sign up for promotional email through an airline like Delta, a website like Scott’s Cheap Flights, or an online booking tool like Expedia. This can alert you to any special, super-low fares. You never know what will pop up in your inbox. Another idea is to work with a corporate travel advisor that has their eye out for great travel tips and discounts for your business.
Reduce Hotel Costs
There are some ways a corporate traveler can be very price-savvy with hotels. There are so many variables with hotel rates — even within the same hotel. When choosing your lodging options, make sure you set the proper parameters with hotel stays including budget, star ratings, and room types. You need to also make sure that any incidental charges such as resort tax, Wi-Fi, and minibar charges are included in the stay. Once you understand travel auxiliary charges, you can use them to negotiate special rates later. For instance, you can establish a recurring rate for your company with a specific hotel or chain for special discounts for your loyalty.
Set A Budget for Food and Other Expenses
Meal expenses can get set into a daily allowance. This gives the employee the freedom to spend what they wish for each meal of the day. You may find that if you give employees control over their food and transportation, it can reduce overspending.
For transportation, it is best to advise employees to choose the most cost-effective transportation solution based on the destination and your travel budget.
Plan Travel in Advance
As it is with most travel, making plans as far in advance as possible is the best way to save money on travel. However, we know that in business sometimes last-minute trips will come up that are beyond your control.
Offer Your Employees Incentives
Your employees may be extremely motivated to save your company money on business travel if you provide incentives. This reward on saving your company money can be anything from a gift card to a popular retail outlet, days off, or a percentage of the savings. What matters is that your employees will appreciate the perk you offer them for saving you money.
Consider A Corporate Travel Management Service
You may want to consider hiring a corporate travel management service to assist you with all the above tasks. These travel experts can organize your company’s business travel with a corporate travel online booking tool that can save your company time and money on business travel.
Traveler’s Q has many experts available to assist you in the future of travel. Contact us today for all your business travel management needs.
