7 Tips for Travel Management Professionals
- Julius Chang
- Jan 14, 2020
- 5 min read
Honestly, we often take our travel managers for granted. From helping you to find the cheapest fare possible, organizing your itinerary, reserving your hotels, accommodations, and transportation to helping you change your flight schedule and travel itinerary every two days; indeed, travel managers have a lot on their plates.
But come on. These are the people who spend billions on travel each year and help companies set policies that dictate how millions of professionals fly. How hard can it be?
While at first glance, it might look like a pretty rewarding job, but in reality, this job requires a set of skills that would make most professionals break into a cold sweat.
But no worries, we got your back. Check out our top 7 tips to survive as travel managers.
1. Be communicative
The success and failure of a travel manager depends on how well they communicate around people. This role requires them to act as a liaison between travel suppliers and corporate travelers and balance the demands of both sides.
So, always make sure that you communicate all the necessary information including your travel policy to all personnel involved.
Tips:
2. Stay resourceful
As the point of contact between corporate travelers and travel vendors, travel managers need to make sure they have all the crucial information on hand to support their travelers quickly if necessary.
Educate yourself in the latest tools, services, practices, processes, and review the qualifications of various travel providers to overcome challenges, improve the efficiency of the trips, and increase the safety of your corporate travelers.
Tips:
Check out sources such as The Institute of Travel Management, The Business Travel Magazine, or GBTA to keep your knowledge up to date.
Improve your skills and talents via on-the-job training that your company provides.
Expand your networks and learn from industry experts by participating in travel forums, exhibitions or travel-related seminars.
3. Master the art of negotiation
One of the most important skills that a good travel manager should have is the ability to negotiate with travel suppliers. Effective negotiations can provide your travelers and organizations with better travel experiences and higher satisfaction.
Prepare to offer your best when negotiating rates with your possible future partners. There are two stages involved: find the right travel vendors and put your negotiation skills at best.
Tips to select travel vendors:
Pick vendors that matched to your travelers' preferences and company profile the most. Find out what business travelers usually look for in their trips here.
Choose the ones that have flexible policy, offer loyalty programs and credit line.
Observe their response time. Corporate travel is very dynamic in nature and hence, fast response time is crucial.
Check the types of support they are offering for all three stages: before, during, and after sales. Work with one that has local representatives and offers 24/7 support.
Tips to negotiate with travel vendors:
Share your travel policy with them. Highlight points that are absolutely non-negotiable. You can offer supplier compliance incentives to rationalize it.
Start with your go-to travel vendors to negotiate rates and amenities. Partner with fewer and preferred brands to maximize your leverage.
Go with cash rebates and other preferential partner discounts over service quality cuts.
Negotiate deals for upper management executives separately under the tag “VIP Only”.
4. Budget wisely
Successful travel managers must possess a basic knowledge of finance and budget.
Understanding the relation between the cost of operating and the amount of value you can get from each business trips you book is crucial.
Avoid assigning static travel budget for your employees. A static budget doesn’t take into account how quickly prices change when booking flights, accommodation and hotels.
Tips:
Have a transparent yet logical travel policy regarding reimbursement and travel budgets.
Expand your flight inventory. Look for ones that offer lower cost fares, better deals, or are in airline alliances.
Do regular audit and gather the necessary data to come up with solutions for future improvement. Use tool such as BizXpenseTracker to integrate your expense solution and generate reports automatically.
5. Utilize technology
Travel industry and technology go hand in hand. As a travel manager, it’s essential to get accustomed to technologies so you can provide your corporate travelers with the best travel experience, from streamlining the booking process, lower travel costs, improve communication, and motivate your employees to take more business trips.
Tips: Incorporate business travel software and mobile apps for easy access.
Here are some tools you can use:
Booking
A complete travel solution (incl. booking and expenses) such as Betravelo can simplify complex booking processes in group bookings while still giving a choice for you to do self-book. Betravelo also saves your traveler’s profile, preferences and payment details.
Expenses
Corporate travelers can record every expense made as they go and it will save the receipts to generate expense reports. They can email the receipts to you and the tool will automatically match them up with their reports.
Transportation
A one-stop solution that offers a network of chauffeurs, car service, and airport transfer providers globally, it can be customized to align with your travel policy and corporate travelers’ demands.
With GroundSpan, you will be able to efficiently compare options and book your travelers’ preferred mode of transportation from executive sedan, limousine, taxi, even arrange ride sharing anywhere in the world.
Others
Equipped with GPS, TSheets provides real-time insights of your employees’ activities and locations to help you comply with duty of care when they are on the road. The advanced time tracking features also enable your employees to customize time entry for fields, projects, and tasks.
6. Always have back-up
In corporate travels, everyone knows the saying “stuff happens”. A cancelled meeting, delayed flights, last minute visit, cars breaking down in the middle of the street, emergencies can always happen. A great travel manager has to be able to come up with solutions and handle the crisis.
Make sure you let your travelers know all of the emergency contacts and procedures for all the suppliers you have booked the trip with. Have a contingency plan in case your first option doesn’t work out.
Tips:
Have other travel providers other than the ones you’re currently using on standby in case of last minute changes.
Maintain good communication with your road warriors to ensure that you’re up-to-date with any changes in itinerary, flights, etc.
7. Use Corporate Travel Management
The easiest way for travel managers to organize corporate travels is to hire a corporate travel agency. Business travel agents will lift most of the heavy burdens of researching and sourcing for the best travel options for you. Moreover, they have access to unpublished rates that are usually cheaper than those you found online.
The key is to find an agency that is the right fit for your company and your travelers. Check out our list of best corporate travel agents in Hong Kong and Singapore.
Tips to select a corporate travel agency:
Match your business objectives with the services. Look for agencies that can be flexible and customize their offers to fit your demands and company cultures.
Pick an agency whose expertise matches your geographic profile and specializes in your industry.
Look for agencies who utilize technologies to save you time and money.
Choose travel agents that can optimize every opportunity to deliver better experience, i.e. integrating loyalty program, travel rewards or assisting in applying for APEC cards.
In Conclusion
What makes a good travel manager? Corporate travelers expect better travel experiences, while the CFO concentrates on cost. HR, on the other hand, just wants to be sure all travelers are safe. Travel managers are not only involved in the tactical travel booking that happens within the organization, but they are also responsible for devising the policy that manages all aspects of business travels.
We think good travel managers always assess what they do today and show where they can add value to their organizations and improve the safety and comfort of corporate travelers in their trips.
Ready to plan your next business trip?
Comments