Insights
10 ways to save on corporate travel
There are many ways to book your corporate travel - via a travel agent, tour operator, online travel agent or by booking direct with airlines, hotels and transportation suppliers.
But only one type of provider is a specialist in business travel – a Travel Management Company (TMC). A TMC is an independent intermediary that manages the business travel requirements of an organisation and can proactively save clients time and money.
This is particularly the case if your TMC, like FCM, specialises in travel management for your industry. Often referred to as business travel agents, a TMC's primary purpose is to help clients keep their travellers safe and deliver travel savings or create more value from an established travel program.
So how can a TMC help construction and engineering companies save money on corporate travel?
Here are just 10 examples:
- Creating or improving an existing travel policy that defines your company’s objectives, meets travellers’ needs, specifies the easiest way to get to a frequently visited business destination and gives travellers a choice of hotels or airlines. Finetuning your travel policy is one of the most important steps in cost control.
- TMCs negotiate discounted fares and loyalty benefits with vendors. By requiring travellers to book business trips in-policy, company travel spend becomes visible and supplier discounts can be maximised.
- By implementing a pre-trip approval process, your travel provider can help your business avoid money being wasted on unnecessary trips.
- Introducing a limit on the hotel star rating or class of airline ticket that can be booked will keep costs down.
- Sophisticated TMC software will search out special promotional prices and best ‘on the day’ rates. Some systems will automatically cancel and rebook tickets when a cheaper alternative in the same location is available.
- Additional accommodation charges such as Wi-Fi, parking and dining can significantly increase the overall cost of an overnight stay. Wherever possible your TMC will negotiate with your preferred hotels to source an all-inclusive rate for your travel program.
- Your TMC will coordinate all your travel arrangements, saving your company staff valuable time and freeing them to concentrate on more productive (and profitable) activities instead.
- Business trips often change at the last minute. By booking all travel through a TMC, a booking can be cancelled or changed without penalty – unlike most online travel agents like Expedia which requires payment in advance.
- A TMC will help you choose how to pay for travel, either by individual, consolidated electronic invoicing, cost centre or project code to make processing simpler and quicker for you.
- Arguably the area in which the TMC provides greatest value to its customers lies in helping them to fulfil their duty of care to their employees by supporting travellers, 24x7. A TMC will know where travellers are at any time and can notify them of changes, alerts, or emerging risks.