Is Your Travel and Events Policy Fit for a World After COVID?

Although we are all desperate to start travelling again with the easing of restrictions, it’s important we take time to ensure that our travel policies are fit for purpose before proceeding with any plans. Setting aside time to review and re-write your current travel policy will ensure your business can maximize savings all whilst maintaining the safety of those travelling for work.

At arrangeMY, we are passionate about sharing our expertise with our clients to ensure they are getting the most from their travel; whether this be cost savings, making their travel sustainable or influencing their booking behaviours. Before commencing travel again, why not take time to discuss your policy with our Account Managers to ensure this is fit for purpose.

Why Have a Travel and Events Policy?

There are multiple reasons to either create or rewrite your travel policy. Simply put, an effective policy will set out full guidelines for your travellers to stick within when they are booking travel. Primarily, this means you are able to set budgets for your company to stick within, keeping costs under control within the agreed rates. In setting certain budgets, this will in turn drive costs savings, encouraging those who book to keep within the rates set out rather than to go above and beyond budgets which may ultimately be costly for the business. A good travel policy will begin to influence booking behaviour, for example booking travel within a certain time frame or booking on a certain class which again is a factor is keeping costs down.

Traveller safety is of course of the upmost importance; therefore, your travel policy can provide regulations as to where travellers are allowed to visit and where perhaps they may not be permitted to. Coupled with this includes an effective approval process, which essentially will give each line manager control to approve where and when their employee travels – and at what cost.

What Makes a Good Travel and Events Policy?

Whilst travel policies do differ between organisations, a basis of a good travel policy usually remains consistent. A travel policy should set out the guidelines for how your employees and partners make their bookings. Included within this policy could include guidance such as:

• How to make a booking – is this done via an online tool or through our office?
• What are your rate caps – do you have an outline of the budgets for air, rail, accommodation and car hire?
• Who are your approvers – do you have a clear line of approval for each booker?
• Set times for travel – peak vs off peak travel times, are these important?
• Board basis – can certain people book a different board basis to others?
• Expense policy – can the expense policy be intertwined within your travel?

Working with your Account Manager, these sorts of inclusions can be discussed in detail to guarantee you are creating the most effective travel policy to safeguard your employees on a health and safety level but also to fully take advantage of all the cost savings on offer.

How Long Does the Process Take?

Evaluating a travel policy can be as detailed or as simple as you want it to be, dependent on the desired aims. If you are simply looking to reduce costs, this may be as simple as a 30-minute conversation, however conversely if you are looking at re-writing your entire policy to cover every single piece of travel this may be a more detailed conversation. Nonetheless, our Account Management Team can work with you to set out certain recommendations to include in your policy to ensure you are achieving the end goal for your business.

Does this Integrate Into arrangeMY Trip?

All travel policies can be integrated into your Online Booking Tool, arrangeMY Trip. This means whether your traveller is booking through our offices or through arrangeMY Trip, they will always need to stick within your set policy in order to make a booking. Further to this, all policies can be continually reviewed to ensure this stays relevant, so changes can be amended with ease if anything changes within your policy.

Ready to start looking at your policy? arrangeMY remain fully operational and here to support our clients completely through their return to travel, so if we can assist with your plans over the coming weeks, please feel free to reach out to your dedicated Account Manager who can organize a session to provide a complete overview of your policy moving into the future.