Options Travel - Travel Management

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The Value of Travel Management

Considering the Value of Options Travel

Looking to maximize every dollar of your travel spend? One smart way to do this is by assessing your company’s travel management needs. To help in this effort, we’ve developed the following analysis tool. What do you need?

1. An Applied Travel Policy

Applying a travel policy means your company ensures that travelers book the appropriate service levels for their trips and that preferred carriers/suppliers are used. It also means getting volume discounts from the airlines, hotels and car rental agencies that save companies millions each year.

Consider these facts:

Business Travel News (BTN) estimates that a company with under $1 million in annual air spend typically achieves a 10% discount on negotiated fares.
BTN research also indicates that companies with annual air spend between $3 and $12 million negotiate average discounts of 19% off of domestic airfares. Without a travel policy to ensure travelers utilize these fares as well as those for hotel and car, however, these savings cannot be realized. These money-saving opportunities are why companies of all sizes not only negotiate discounts with travel suppliers, but also apply an enforceable policy to their employees’ travel decisions.

2. The Best Fares

The secret to getting the lowest prices, however, does not end with corporate discounts. The way to get the best fares is simple: have access to the widest range of fare options—sometimes fare sales and other promotions by airlines, hotels, and car providers offer even better rates than your corporate negotiated fare. Look at it this way: If you don’t get the biggest menu, you are simply missing out on all the faring options. How do we help? We offer the fullest menu possible:

Published fares
Group meeting, bulk fares
Discounted fares
Consolidator fares
Your negotiated fares
Consumer Web site fares
Our negotiated fares
Airline Web site fares

What is the result of this larger menu of fares? In a study comparing 12,000 itineraries made by agents and Web sites, research firm Topaz International found that agent fares were on average 23% cheaper than the same bookings made via the Internet.The agents’ larger fare menu is a major factor.

3. Sufficient Data & Reporting

Smart companies also know that reports of their travel spend enable them to quickly and effectively track and analyze spending patterns. You use travel expenditure reports to verify policy adherence, and to properly analyze, budget and control travel expenditures, as well as to monitor performance against volume discount agreements for renegotiation purposes with suppliers. Without these reports, your corporate travel managers cannot adequately perform their job of monitoring those expenses that CFO’s scrutinize for their tendency to balloon. Here are examples of the reporting we provide:

Travel spend by employee
Employee travel policy adherence
Travel spend by department
Foregone travel savings
Travel spend by airline/hotel/car
Traveler location identification (disaster planning) provider

4. Value-add Services

What about all those other factors that inevitably come into play? The agency you work with, via online or phone service, provides many additional services to keep your employees, travel managers and CFO’s satisfied. Not surprisingly, these services frequently add up to large savings for your company. Examples include:

Changes to air/hotel/car itineraries
Unused ticket tracking and management
Upgrades
Post-reservation fare improvement searches
Location of employees in case of emergency
Faster service vs. the 30 minutes a traveler averages booking online(PhocusWright)
Consulting help to assist you in renegotiating the best supplier discounts and further lower overall travel spend