It all starts with your travel policy. Your corporate travel policy should include a pre-approval process.
A clear and agreed policy (with a pre-approval process for employee ticket and accommodation purchases) will stop people jumping on the internet and making their own last-minute bookings.
An effective policy will also take out complex employee claim-backs and significantly reduce your overall spend.
Keep to ‘hand luggage only’
For short business trips, ‘hand luggage only’ travel saves money and time.
With just carry-on hand luggage (for flights in particular) your people will be able to breeze through check-in and ignore the baggage queues.
Negotiate corporate hotel rates
Because many organisations are happy to reward loyalty, if your employees often stay in the same hotel (or they like to use the same hotel chain or travel provider) it is very likely that reduce rates can be negotiated.
This can be done centrally by your organisation for all employees.
And if you use a corporate travel provider (and we highly recommend that you do) they can deliver this for you and find you costs savings.
Is the travel actually necessary?
In this busy digital age, a key travel cost saving question is, ‘Do we actually need to meet face to face’?
Could a virtual meeting give you the same outcome?
FaceTime, Skype and other technologies enable organisations to easily bring groups of people together online and they also make it easy to set up and run internet seminars and training sessions.
Time is of the essence
If people do decide they prefer to meet face to face, being flexible about meeting times can make a huge cost difference.
The key here is seeing if meetings can be arranged to fit in with off-peak (and therefore lower cost) travel.
Think ahead
We all know that the more in advance you can book your travel and accommodation, the less expensive it is likely to be.
By planning and booking ahead, individuals and organisations are also more likely to have a greater (and better) selection of travel options and hotels.
Explore other ideas
Get creative and think about any other travel and accommodation cost saving incentives you can introduce to support (and make life easier for) your employees.
Examples may include showing how an advance booking can enable someone to stay in a nicer hotel, upgrade a room, travel at a more convenient time or move up from a standard seat to a better class.
You may also be able to introduce reward vouchers or a percentage share of the cost savings gained.
The more your people can see the benefits of thinking ahead and seeking cost savings, the more they’ll get involved.
Let someone take the weight off
Corporate travel and accommodation is a complex and costly area.
As a travel and accommodation specialist, arrangeMY provides full account management.
We support established UK businesses and charities we bring them a complete 24/7 travel, accommodation, venue finding and cost saving solution.
To find out more, call our highly experienced team on 01905 610016 or ping an email to sales@arrangemy.com
[cta]
