Corporate Travel Management: Driving Technological Transformation in the World of Business Travel

Travel management is how a company maintain, tracks and reports on business-related travel and expenses. Travel management goes beyond booking flights and hotels. It also encompasses the logistical, financial, and safety considerations of corporate travel

Travel companies like hotels and airlines can optimize their travel strategy with the help of a corporate travel agent. This is because travel management companies are responsible for booking flight tickets, accommodation, car rentals, transfers, and business events. For hotels, this serves as an indirect link to business travelers. They can gain more customers via the corporate travel agents. 

Most corporate travel management companies turn to GDS (global distribution system) in order to carry out their tasks, such as finding the right accommodation, flights, and transportation. GDS is also an important distribution channel for hotels as it connects them with the corporate travel agents and provides them with up-to-date information about their latest room prices and availability. GDS systems, the chances of corporate travel management companies finding your hotel and booking your rooms are maximized. By becoming part of this vital distribution system, your hotel will increase its revenue and reach a wider audience.

Reduce costs: a major advantage of using corporate travel management agencies is reducing travel costs. This includes accommodation rates, insurance, airline tickets, and any other related expense. A business travel agent will have the necessary experience to find or negotiate the best possible deals for the company.

Time management: organizing a business trip can take considerable time, so if you manage a medium or large company, you won’t have time to book your business travel yourself. A dedicated corporate travel manager will take care of these tasks so you and your staff can focus on everything else.

Efficiency: as corporate travel is on the rise, most businesses opt for a corporate travel management agency to ensure their employees travel safely whilst adhering to all the relevant travel policies.
 

Customer self-service is proactive customer service that offers support for customers who want to find their own solutions. Other than working with one of the company's customer service representatives, customers use self-service options to research and troubleshoot issues by themselves. Customer self-service is an essential feature to include in your company's customer service offer as it can provide your customers with fast and readily available solutions.

A business can optimize customer experience to a higher level with self-service solution. As well as, the apps provide a complete package of your company’s services and touch-points on a single platform. 
 

Self-service makes them feel like one. They don’t want to wait for human support to avail services. With a one touch, they can access a complete range of services. Without all demographic, time or platform limitations, offerings are available to them 24×7! Also, it is possible to complete all regulated transactions within security layers. 

Consider a customer has to report a severe issue on an immediate basis. Rather than searching for a contact number or drafting long emails to clarify the issue, he can use his mobile. Open the self-service app, click a picture, request a repair or service and find in the location. Post that, he can track the status of the request. The rest of the action takes places on a timely basis with 

perfection. Self-help apps deliver quick, incredible and hassle-free service.

Enabling your customers to pay by phone is simple than you think, and can help improve sales and customer loyalty.

Mobile apps has really taken away the requirement that you have to develop big systems and be a large company successful with technology, in many ways; it is easier for small businesses to adopt mobile payment programs as they don’t have a large infrastructure to work through so small businesses can jump right to be in.

Customers like quick service, especially when paying for that is typically their least favorite part of the shopping or dining experience. Lot of customers and staff find that it’s considerably quicker to pay with a mobile device than a credit card. Customers typically are more feeling to return if they don’t have to wait a long time in line.

The time savings can also directly gain profits by allowing you to accommodate more customers in the same period of time, especially for businesses with a very busy period during the day
 

Travel risk management (TRM) is a comprehensive, logical and proactive approach to protecting your people and your organization from travel risks. The broader notion of travel risk management and duty of care is not just linked to how well your organization can respond to a crisis—but rather, how efficiently it can actually prevent a crisis from happening in the first place. Follow our three-pronged approach to TRM and know that you’re one step closer to a more effective traveler protection strategy.

Beyond a moral responsibility to keep employees out of harm’s way, organizations have a legal obligation to do so. Laws hold a company responsible for the safety and security of its employees while they are working. This is known as ‘duty of care’ and it specifically applies when employees are traveling for business purposes. It must be noted that duty of care applies not only to foreign travel, but also local and domestic travel.

Duty of CareTravel Risk Management strategies emphasizes prevention before travel begins. Travel policies can help prevent difficult by requiring employees to use preferred car rental vendors that offer well-maintained vehicles or by setting hotel requirements and standards. They might include restrictions of how many employees can travel on the same flight and a pre-defined process for communication when in high-risk destinations. Prevention also includes the duty of informing travelers of inoculations and visas required for their destination. 

Risk mitigation also includes making travelers aware of current events, potential political hotspots or the propensity for natural disaster that could put an employee at risk during their business travel. Pre-trip briefings, such as travel alerts or cultural training, highlight local customs and situations of which travelers should be aware. To successfully educate travelers before they go, an organization needs to know who is traveling, when and where they are going, prior to the trip. Travel Management Companies can provide traveler information reports from their own systems or from risk management providers Risk Management or Safe to Go. 

Duty of Care Beyond destination intelligence and preventative care, organizations should also be prepared to provide guidance and assistance to keep employees safe during the course of business travel. Again, it is important that an organization knows the location of their employee (city and hotel), and know how to communicate with them. Detailed data is an invaluable tool to track, locate and communicate with the employee while they are away from home.

Travel risk management firms offer corporate travel departments with a range of solutions to proactively alert traveling employees and their managers to potential health and safety dangers on the road, and to locate and assist employees in case of emergency. To do this effectively requires comprehensive, timely access to employee itinerary and location details, which is impeded when employees book outside designated channels.
 

Mobile payments via digital wallets were already becoming too prevalent as consumers became increasingly comfortable with the technology, and as more merchants offered terminals that accept mobile payments from devices at the point of sale.

Payments are convenient:

Smartphones are owned by more than 81% and are more within reach than wallets for many. Mobile payments are a general extension of all the daily tasks that users demand of their smartphones, from checking the weather to updating their social media accounts. Including payments to a device already consistently used makes the process easier and more convenient than ever before.  

Payments offer extra layers of security:

Mobile payments decrease or eliminate the need for consumers to carry payment methods like cash and credit cards, meaning that these payment methods are less likely to be lost or stolen. Digital wallets also offer extra layers of biometric authentication such as fingerprint scans and/or facial recognition, assisting businesses in ensuring payments aren’t fraudulent. Lastly, mobile payments are often tokenized during transactions. This means that sensitive account holder information is restored by tokens that fraudsters cannot use if intercepted during payment sessions, increasing security for both businesses and consumers.

Payments enable fully digitized financial transactions:

Consumer payments are a critical part of the household budgeting case. Digital wallets can integrate quickly into software and mobile apps that help people keep track of what they’re spending, where, and how often. Also, electronic receipts can be issued to help consumers keep better track of their spending, reduce paper waste, and decrease costs for businesses.

Mobile payments are fast:

Counting cash or waiting for a chip card transaction takes more time. With mobile payments, a customer easily presents their mobile device and authenticates the transaction often by a simple glance at their phone for facial recognition. This creates a quicker, more user-friendly experience for consumers and helps businesses expedite transactions.  

The sharing economy refers to an economic system where connection to goods and services is shared between individuals in the economy. But the developing in individuals’ access to technology has prompted startup companies to rapidly grow the sharing economy as technology makes it easier and cheaper to share our valuable resources.

While the rise of the sharing economy has had a widespread impact on almost every aspect of our lives, one industry that will continue to deeply be impacted is the travel industry. Sharing economy giants Uber and Airbnb continue to rise at an astonishing rate.

A biggest part of business revenue is spent on travel expenses. If businesses are to stand cost efficient and competitive in an ever changing landscape, it is time that they start incorporating   current travel policies that take into account sharing economy options. 26% of travel managers have prepared or implemented a policy in regards to sharing economy ground transportation; whereas a large 39% of travel managers still say that implementing the sharing economy into corporate travel policies is not on the plan.  Also, 21% of travel managers say that they plan to introduce sharing economy accommodation options within two years. In spite of some travel managers have begun to incorporate sharing economy options, the large majority have not yet recognized this opportunity that can help cut down on costs.
 

Travel-management-consultation However, one main concern to businesses that are considering sharing economy travel options is duty of care. From the perspective of the businesses, secure that employees are safe while travelling is the main priority. When companies employ the services of sharing economy travel options, this becomes huge complicated as there is a lack of a screening process that is employed by large travel management companies. So this factor should be carefully weighed in when choosing the best travel option for the company.

Basically, the business travel industry is in for a big shift. Once companies start to analyze how much cheaper it is for them and easier for their employees to use sharing economy options, they will slowly start to implement new corporate travel policies that accommodate this. Even though originally businesses may be hesitant to do so because of their long-standing relationship with hotel and travel services, they will realize that this will reduce costs drastically in the long run and will welcome this with open arms.

As your company grows, so will its need for business travel. The company has to send on business trips, the more complicated planning and managing corporate travel becomes. Travelopro created, corporate travel management software, to make the process easier for corporate travel managers, executive assistants, and business travelers.
 

Travel management software is need to book trips, manage upcoming trips, and track and report on previous trips. Other important features and uses include the automation of corporate travel policies and the ability to consolidate travel invoices and vendors.

Its help to your business travel expense software cover certain functionality essential both for the traveler and for the company. However, the functionality often influences the cost. In case you consider for a ready-made solution you’d better make the careful travel and expense management software comparison and choose the one corresponding your corporate needs most.

Still, there can be lots of unnecessary features, which neither you nor your employees will ever use. The answer to your problem, in this case, is the development of a customized corporate solution. That’s where Travelopro can guarantee you the best quality-to-price ratio and the cutting-edge result. We implement only the functionality our customers need and do not create any unnecessary adds on.

Basically, the business travel management product should be able to make a booking, to create or apply company policy and regulations, to form automatic expense reports and to manage traveling worker data.
 

• The simplicity of booking for administrators;
• Self reservation option for travelers;
• Comprehensive access to all airline and accommodation inventory worldwide;
• Automatic policy compliance.
• The ideal solution will also:
• Manage the business trip schedule of a single employee as well as a team;
• Make sure that the workers have all the essential visas and travel-related documents;
• Make the most of frequent traveler discounts;
• Automate expense reporting.