Fixing Corporate Travel’s Rising Costs

A looming recession and increased travel demand is making business travel more expensive.

But that doesn’t mean your business has to cut back on travel to keep costs down. 

In this blog post, we will explore four tips to lower corporate travel costs while providing unparalleled business travel experiences to your employees.

Increase in-policy bookings

There are many benefits to driving in-policy corporate travel bookings including cost savings, better servicing, and improved traveler safety when on the road.

One of the most important elements of a corporate travel policy is offering employees a wide selection of options for them to book their business trips. If a policy is too restrictive, travelers will just book on a consumer site to find what they want. A well-designed travel policy gives employees flexibility and control over their travel arrangements inside the structure of your corporate travel program’s guidelines.

Your policy guidelines should be enforced on all the channels your travelers can book through whether they book on mobile, on desktop, or through a travel agent. This ensures there is no leakage and your travelers’ trips are all tracked, leading to lower business travel costs.

Having a dynamic and granular policy engine at your disposal allows you to set specific rules and guidelines for travelers who fall into specific groups. With Spotnana, individual travelers will see the reasons why a trip option can’t be selected in real-time as they are booking a trip. By showing travelers all available options, including those that violate policy rules, you can increase trust in your travel program.

Dynamic and granular policy settings allow administrators to set strict guidelines on travel spending, carbon output, and types of trips to be approved.

Since your entire global travel program resides on Spotnana, travel managers can easily set these rules and guidelines from one central dashboard. This saves time so administrators can focus on more important tasks. It’s easy to create a separate policy for different departments and offices, avoiding a one-size-fits-all policy that doesn’t meet the needs of travelers.

Spotnana supports the ability to set policies incorporating lowest relative fares and lowest logical fares, providing travelers a better experience while enforcing cost guidelines.

Travel managers can even set dynamic exceptions, allowing groups of travelers some wiggle room to choose a more expensive hotel or flight if it’s only slightly outside of policy.

Highlight preferred vendors

Another way to lower corporate travel costs is to work with preferred vendors. By promoting the suppliers that provide the best service and most amenities to your travelers, you can help ensure they have a great experience on the road.

Encouraging travelers to stay at a specific hotel near your corporate headquarters, for instance, can also allow you to negotiate better rates and improved rooms for your travelers based on the volume of room nights your company spends there. Similarly, partnering with a reliable car rental branch and airline with direct routes to key cities can help you secure the best discounts and get more value out of your corporate travel budget.

When creating your vendor program, be sure to communicate clearly with travelers about which suppliers are preferred vendors and why they were chosen. This will help them understand the benefits of booking through these partners and help your program achieve lower business travel costs.

With Spotnana, your preferred vendors are clearly marked and promoted at the top of a traveler’s search. You also have access to preferred rates negotiated by Spotnana for a wide variety of flight and hotel options at a reduced price.

When all your travelers are booking with preferred vendors, it’s easy to increase booking volume and negotiate for better prices and perks in the future.

Travelers using Spotnana have access to Spotnana preferred rates and administrators can set preferred suppliers for their travel programs.

Highlight negotiated rates

Once you have built relationships with preferred suppliers, the next step is to leverage corporate hotel rates and negotiated airfares whenever possible.

You can negotiate great deals for flights, hotels, car rentals, and more. By encouraging travelers to book options for which you have negotiated deals, you can ensure that you’re getting the best value and great experiences. This enhances the value of your travel program, giving travelers a strong reason to book in-policy options on your corporate-approved booking tool.

Spotnana’s online booking tool and app show the travel options for which your program has negotiated deals, clearly denoting the special rates and fares that are available for specific choices.

The difference between the normal price and negotiated price is also marked in our search display, showing travelers the tangible benefit of selecting a particular option.

Only pay a flat fee per trip

When partnering with a traditional travel management company, you are likely to pay from a menu of fees that depend on the type of travel booked, the channel it was booked through, the type of service a traveler needs after booking, and more. This often leads to high costs and confusing pricing that lacks transparency.

Spotnana offers flat fee pricing per trip, giving you great value and ensuring that you’re only getting charged when travelers book business trips through your program. All service is included as well, regardless of how much help a traveler needs.

We believe this pricing model aligns with what is best for you; you shouldn’t pay extra because a trip was disrupted and a traveler needs help.

This helps you control your travel budget without limiting your flexibility or creating more work for yourself as a travel manager. It also gives individual travelers peace of mind knowing that they will not be surprised by any additional costs at the end of their trip.

Want to learn more about reducing the costs of your corporate travel program? Read the guide to reducing corporate travel costs.