- Do I really need a corporate travel company?
- How do I find the company that will meet all of our needs while reigning in travel costs?
- How will I know when I’ve found the right corporate travel services?
What is a corporate travel agency or company?
- Book trips for employees
- Provide travel solutions and support for cancellations, reschedulings etc.
- Negotiate group rates and corporate rates
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See how to save money on business travel
The benefits of a corporate travel agency
- Supplement a lack of in-house resources or expertise: Maybe you don’t have the need for a full-time travel manager, and your office team is swamped with other critical work. In that case, a corporate travel agency can provide travel experts and the services you need to make all your necessary travel arrangements without having to hire additional staff.
- Negotiate group rates and corporate rates: For group travel and continued, sustained travel, agents can negotiate better rates for their clients.
- Offer travel support: When office managers have to support travelers on the road, things get stressful. Travelers might not be able to always get help on nights and weekends, while office managers feel the strain of having to work overtime. An agency can alleviate this burden.
- Report on travel spend: In order to optimize their budgets, businesses need to know which departments are spending what on travel. Agencies can report on spend for all stakeholders by team, department, or project, and help you accurately track all your travel expenses.
- Employers have a duty of care to their employees, and business travel exposes employees to inherent risks. Employing a business travel agent ensures a proactive travel risk management (TRM) policy to keep you and your employees safe, planning ahead and keeping crisis management strategies in place.
- Maintain compliance: Every company has some sort of rules that make up their travel policy. An agency can enforce these guidelines when booking.
What corporate travel agencies lack
- Poor technology for travelers and admins: Travel agencies rely on a lot of phone calls and emails to interact with their clients. But today’s travelers don’t want to hop on a phone call. They want to book for themselves easily within company policy. Similarly, many administrators would rather log into a platform to get their own questions answered, than have to email an agent to ask for a report. Having good technology can also help you generate useful travel data so you can track your company's business travel spend accurately.
- Bad rates and high fees: Travel agencies can negotiate special rates for individual clients, but they don’t usually have the best rates on special travel. Plus, they have fees and markups for every aspect of their service.
- Lack of travel inventory and options: Travel agencies might partner with a few vendors. They don’t usually offer low-cost budget vendors like Southwest Airlines and EasyJet. This is something you should definitely include in your corporate travel program, especially for small businesses, to improve cost savings on business travel.
Traditional corporate travel services versus business travel platforms
- Need for smoother, easier travel policy compliance
- No paying out of pocket with personal credit cards
- Travel spend reporting for budget analysis
- Automated expense reporting
- Need for autonomy and self-booking
- Access to all of the flight, hotel, train, and car rental options available around the world
- Great user experience
- Great experience on mobile
- Real-time travel support (Consumers would like this, but rarely get it. It’s a must for business travelers, though.)
What to look for in a corporate travel agency and why
Simple integration services
Easy booking experience
Consumer-grade travel inventory
No hidden costs
Excellent trip support
Built in travel policies and approvals
Travel spend reporting
Innovative and easily scalable
Most popular corporate travel booking companies
- TravelPerk (see why we genuinely believe we have the best business travel solution in the market)
- SAP Concur
- Egencia
- BCD Travel
- Amex GBT
- CWT
- FCM Travel
- Navan
- Travel CTM
- Corporate Traveler
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