Business travel is on the rise and companies need to factor this in when planning future travel policies and budgets. Business travel related activity totalled $1.3 trillion globally in 2017. This was a 5.8% increase on 2016 levels, according to the GBTA BTI annual global report, and spending is forecast to increase by another $1.7 trillion by 2022.
This can put pressure on your company budget, especially if it’s not growing to match the amount of travel needed.
If you don’t have a company travel policy in place, you will soon find your company travel budget evaporates rapidly.
Watch out for the following costs:
1) Beware of extra hidden costs
It’s not just the initial trip cost that you need to consider, you also need to factor in the cost of any time and date changes, which can incur extra costs. Flight delays, visa arrangements and transfers between home, airport and hotels can all ramp up costs. A Travel Management Company (TMC) can help you to keep on top of your travel budgeting by providing reports, detailing all aspects of your expenditure. At the end of the year, you can, therefore, calculate spend for each traveller, helping you to manage your budget more effectively.
2) Monitor costs incurred whilst travelling for business
These can soon creep up, so make sure you have a set budget for each traveller. Most hotels will have pre-bookable rates with meals included, enabling you to prepay. You can also specify if you want the mini bar bill to be charged to the traveller or to your company. This enables you to keep track of
3) How to save time searching for flights and hotels
We see many PAs, executive assistants and business travellers spending a lot of their own time looking at different flights and hotel options. If you provide us with your airline and ground arrangement requirements, we will do all the hard work for you, supplying multiple flight and hotel options, where necessary, in accordance with your specifications. If you are unfamiliar with the city and the location that you are travelling to, we can also advise where to stay so you are not wasting your own time and company budget researching options independently. Just give us the place of the meeting or conference and we can provide recommendations nearby, leaving you to focus on other essential tasks.
4) How you make savings booking business travel ahead
We will always be able to source better fares if you book your flights as far as possible in advance as most airlines tend to release their cheaper seats well ahead of departure. As the travel date approaches and the plane fills the cost of seats slowly creeps up and you could easily end up paying the same amount for an economy seat as would have paid are for a premium seat when booking in advance. A TMC has the ability to hold the seats without payment. So, if you are waiting on a client to confirm but want to secure the seat and fare whilst arrangements are finalised. We can often secure guaranteed fares and some airline for days, weeks or sometimes even months. This can help to reduce your company budget, markedly, as it protects you from paying huge price hikes.
5) Take advantage of TMC’s discounted rates
Lastly, TMCs have pre-negotiated rates with most of the major airlines and leading hotels. We book a vast amount of flights and hotels and, as a
If you want to compare our prices, please contact us for a non-obligatory quote and see for yourself how we can save you time and money.
