Corporate Travel Services – The Complete Guide

1. Setting Itineraries

There are many different variables on a business trip and keeping track of everything can be a huge undertaking, taking away from the focus of the trip. That’s why it’s essential to have a travel itinerary for your business trip to run smoothly and to be productive. A travel itinerary ensures you are fully prepared for the trip and have all aspects covered and organized.  

Travel itineraries cover meeting schedules, restaurant reservations, transportation, hotel bookings, and a complete order of events taking place with times, locations, and transportation already included, leaving the traveller to focus on the purpose of the trip and not all the small, time-consuming details.  

Travel Management companies understand that each business trip is unique and has different variables to consider and plan for. They therefore take the stress out of your hands by creating travel itineraries that are tailor-made to your business as well as to the specific business trip, ensuring a successful, organized trip.  

2. Providing Travel Support 

Travel support is an essential corporate travel service. As a business you want to know that the traveller for your business trip is taken care of, and someone is ready to provide support and help no matter what, ensuring a safe journey.  

Travel support includes finding alternative flights if your flight is delayed or cancelled, helping in times of emergencies by solving whatever issue arises, finding alternative accommodation for unsatisfactory lodgings, organizing visas and work permits, and creating tailor-made experiences specific to you or your traveller’s needs and wants.  

Most travel management companies provide assistance 24/7 so that you get the support you need at all times, giving you and the traveller peace of mind.  

3. Duty of Care 

Corporate travel management provides a duty of care service for your business trip. This means that the travel management company makes sure to research and anticipate any potential risk to the traveller during the trip. They also implement preventative measures appropriate to ensure the safety of the traveller and have a plan ready to be used quickly and effectively in case of an emergency during the journey at any point. 

This duty of care service is normally implemented and managed through a corporate travel policy. Duty of care is an important service provided as businesses have a legal obligation to their employees and need to make sure travellers are safe so that no duty of care is breached leading to potential civil liabilities. Duty of care also provides a message that your business sees safety as a priority as well as the well-being of employees allowing your employees to have confidence in you.  

Duty of care in corporate travel management can be provided through travel alerts and safety information, emergency assistance, health and vaccination information, travel insurance, safe accommodation, and safe transportation.  

4. Competitive Pricing

Business travel can become expensive rapidly, that’s why corporate travel management provides competitive price negotiations on your behalf. Travel management companies make sure to find the best-priced flights, transportation, accommodation, and anything else you might need for your business trip. They work closely with you to understand your budget for business travel and ensure to find pricing that works for you. 

This service makes sure your business isn’t wasting money when it comes to business travel while still getting the quality you want for your business trips. This service takes a lot of stress and worry out of your hands and allows you to focus on other more important things. 

5. Booking Accommodation

 Corporate travel management includes handling all the booking of accommodation for your business trip. This service ensures that you save time and money. Some corporate travel agencies also provide group booking management taking the stress of booking and organizing conferences or retreats away from you. 

A corporate travel agency’s main goal in booking accommodation for you is finding the best rates while still upholding your business travel standards. 

6. Organizing Transportation 

Business travel requires many modes of transport during the journey. Researching and booking the right dates and times is time-consuming as many factors need to be taken into account. 

Corporate travel management provides this service knowing it plays a significant role in a successful business trip. For your trip to produce the results you want your transportation from point to point needs to be well organised and thoroughly thought out and planned. 

Corporate travel agencies understand the importance of transportation for business trips and plan each step thoroughly ensuring the best routes and modes of transport for your trip, organizing every detail of your travel. 

 7. Identifying Costs and developing a travel policy

There are many costs to consider when planning a business trip and for you to budget correctly you need to know all the costs involved not leaving anything out. This corporate travel service allows you to know that every cost has been covered and considered creating a realistic budget for your business trip without any surprises. 

A travel policy is an essential document to have for business travel. A travel policy is your business’s rules and procedures that make employees aware of how they should spend during travel for business purposes. For your travel policy to clearly state your standards and expectations during business travel is important. 

Corporate travel management handles both identifying costs of business travel and assisting with creating a fair, realistic travel policy for your business. 

8. Reporting and data analysis

Reporting and analyzing business travel is essential and highly beneficial for all businesses. Effective reporting can help you make improved data-driven decisions about money allocations and budget management, find cost-saving opportunities, ensure travel policy compliance, and keep track of all expenses.  

Corporate travel management uses reports and analyzes data to find solutions and recommend better spending management for business travel. 

9. Organizing meetings and events

Planning some event or meeting is necessary for most business travel. This requires a lot of organizing and preparation to ensure it is successful.

Corporate travel management makes sure to plan and create events and meetings that offer a great experience for all. This corporate travel service includes finding the perfect venue for you, planning the agenda, creating the theme for the event, organizing travel and transfers for attendees, booking accommodation and meals, sourcing entertainment, and reporting and analysis of the event.