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Effective Travel Management

The eight key levers to optimizing travel programs


CWT works with its clients to respond to the complexities and challenges of business travel management while addressing the needs and expectations of travelers. CWT sees travel management as a multi-faceted undertaking, encompassing eight key levers that can generate savings while delivering service and enhancing security:

 

Traveler and Transaction Services. By using online booking tools for simple transactions, companies can reduce their total travel costs by up to 10 percent. For complex itineraries and special services, applying the skills of expert travel counselors is a key to traveler satisfaction. Having access to the relevant content of airlines, hotels, rail and rental car companies is another priority for travel managers and travelers alike. Equally important is providing travelers with a full range of services designed to meet their needs from the moment of booking through their return. Implementing the service configuration that best balances a company’s requirements for service and savings optimizes transaction processing.

 

Hotel Spend. The cost of hotel stays, which typically accounts for 30 to 40 percent of a total travel budget, can be reduced when companies approach their hotel program in a disciplined and professional manner. By optimizing negotiations with independent properties, as well as chains, and implementing a policy that couples the need for savings with traveler comfort, convenience and security, companies can improve compliance, enhance traveler tracking, and more effectively manage their hotel spend.

 

Air and Ground Transportation. Air spend typically represents the bulk of travel expenditures and opportunities for greater savings still exist. Getting travelers to book in advance and balancing spot buying with negotiated fares help to reduce costs. Concentrating volume with a limited number of preferred suppliers for larger volume-based discounts is also important, as are negotiations with airline alliances. Ground transportation, which includes rail, car rental, limousine, chauffeur-driven “black car” and taxi services, does not always receive the same attention as air although it can represent 10 percent or more of a total travel budget. In many markets, rail travel offers an effective alternative to air in terms of cost, travel time and carbon dioxide emissions. Careful analysis of a company’s ground transportation data and relevant information on suppliers and competitive agreements can go a long way in negotiating the best terms and stabilizing costs over the duration of a contract. 
 

Compliance and Demand Management. Compliance begins with a well-defined travel policy that travelers understand and willingly follow. A company’s travel policy must strike a balance between reducing costs and responding to travelers’ needs. It is equally important to regularly monitor and consolidate bookings with actual spend, including credit card expenditures, to measure compliance and identify opportunities for savings. Driving compliance increases measurable volumes, which enhances negotiations with suppliers, and enables companies to track travelers more easily in an emergency.

 

Consolidation. Companies can enjoy savings of on average 20 percent, as well as enhanced service and security, when they consolidate their travel programs regionally or globally. Consequently, more and more companies are standardizing their travel policy, processes and tools, and consolidating their sourcing. To support this effort, they increasingly work with one travel management company around the world.

 

Security and Corporate Social Responsibility. Leading-edge companies keep their travelers well-informed about security issues before, during and after a business trip and are well equipped to locate and assist them in an emergency. These companies have also begun to address issues of corporate social responsibility related to the environment and their business travel program. Consequently, they are making it possible for their travelers to compare carbon dioxide emissions related to different means of travel at the time of booking. Post-trip reporting allows companies to track and offset CO2 emissions and better manage environmental issues.

 

Meetings and events. By integrating meetings and events in their managed travel program, companies can tap into a potential source of overlooked savings. They can also benefit from many of the same traveler services their travel management company offers.

 

Performance measures. Travel managers need key performance metrics and regularly updated executive dashboards to monitor the progress of their travel program. Equally important is an accurate assessment of traveler satisfaction, which enables travel management professionals to continually refine and improve travel programs.