As an employee, business travel and trips are often fun and productive. Booking travel can be a hectic task. With numerous routes and fares, it takes time to find the best deal when organizing your company’s travel itineraries. In recent years, especially after COVID-19, Corporate travel management has become so popular in the community because of its high-level specialism in business travel.
However, you may be on a rollercoaster if you frequently manage business travel for the entire company. It’s not always what we assume, but there’s no need to worry because, In this blog, Qoni Travel will explain what a corporate travel manager is. And what does it do?
What is a Corporate Travel Manager?
A corporate travel manager sets and manages employees’ business travel. A corporate travel manager helps design the company’s travel policy, arranges all the travel arrangements, manages and observes travel expenditures, and looks out for travelers. After the trip, they analyze the data to streamline and improve the next trip. A corporate travel manager must be professional, communicative, organized, and strategic. In earlier days, a travel manager used to be someone in the HR department or an office manager who organized travel on top of their other duties. But now we need modern solutions.
What are the Responsibilities of a Travel Corporate Manager?
Let’s have a look over the responsibilities that are being carried by a corporate travel manager.
Designing Corporate Travel Policy
The main duty of a corporate travel manager is to set up any company’s corporate travel policy.
This considers almost all the trip’s potential expenses and establishes the new rules and regulations for employees. And once the corporate policy is made, it should consist of all the information relevant to the company’s business travel practices.
- The booking process and the travel booking tool that has been approved
- Booking costs (hotels, flights, ground transportation) that are permissible
- Cities or routes that are more expensive may have unique rules or peculiarities
- Agents recommended by the company
- Procedure for approving trips that exceed typical budget limits
- Processing of refunds
- Expenses allowed and prohibited
- The debriefing process after travel
- Insurance provider for travel
- Vendor or procedure responsible for duty of care
Handling the travel plans and arrangements
The two most important aspects of any business trip are accommodation and transportation, but it also includes other responsibilities like covering travel insurance, airport transfers and much more. Most companies hire corporate travel managers to book all these critical aspects of their employees’ business trips.
When the corporate travel policy is in place, it is the responsibility of the corporate travel managers to book trips according to the predetermined guidelines in the policy, fetching the best deals available. In addition, travel managers also provide more specific details regarding transport and accommodation arrangements. Corporate travel companies also specify the type of travel (e.g. business or economy) and the category of the hotel.
Budget management for travel expense
Financial tracking is another important element of corporate travel management. Corporate travel managers should understand how to manage credit cards and in-destination expenses. Any company can control business travel expenses by limiting credit cards and other expenses. Employees, however, should have the freedom to build their morale. Corporate travel managers’ real challenge is balancing freedom and cost-efficiency since charges vary from destination to destination, so spending limits must change accordingly. It can be difficult to gauge the right amount for each trip in corporate travel management. It’s here where Qoni as your corporate travel manager with proper knowledge and experience steps in.
Adopting New Technology
Travel managers must keep up with technology related to business travel. AI Booking tools make things more efficient and faster for the whole company. Employees can now book their trip in a couple of minutes under the company’s travel policy . The data set of corporate travel is another advantage that can be derived from new AI technology. Data science and machine learning can help travelers to get recommendations tailored to their needs. Suppose you searched for “hotels in Kuala Lumpur” – the results you’ll see next time you open the app or website will revolve around accommodations in Kuala Lumpur.In corporate travel management tools, data is stored in one place, which makes it easier for the user to analyze the data. It also reduces the need to send endless emails when organizing trips with intelligent data storage.
As a result, keeping up with new technology gives employees more autonomy and allows corporate travel managers to focus on other things.
Data Analysis
Although business travel policies aim to cover all eventualities, it is also essential to analyze the past business trips. To make informed decisions about travel policy, travel managers must gather data from all the trips. In the case of employees’ travel bookings that exceed the budget, must be addressed. Business travel managers can identify issues and consult employees when they have a reliable dataset. Last but not the least, financial data helps set KPIs and analyze the profitability of business trips. They can see the most profitable trips based on their expenditures versus their gains.
Types of Corporate Travel Management
It is common for businesses to use corporate travel management companies in order to minimize their costs. There are two sorts of corporate travel agencies: internal and external.
Internal Corporate Travel Management
In-house corporate travel management involves:
- Hiring an employee to make him responsible for booking trips.
- Making last-minute changes to the travel itineraries.
- Maximizing your savings while finding the most suitable deals for your employees.
Having an in-house travel manager will simplify your business travel planning, and you’ll be able to work alongside a trusted employee. Additionally, you will avoid paying a fee or commission to an external corporate travel manager when you hire an in-house one.
External Corporate Travel Management
Corporate travel agents specialize in booking business travel. They’re available at your request and use online tools to save money. The main difference between an external and in-house corporate travel manager is that you don’t employ them to handle your business travel needs; instead, you pay them a fee or commission each time they make a booking.
Since they usually work alone, in-house travel agents aren’t always available in times of crisis. We’ll have a dedicated team of external travel managers on hand 24 hours a day. When your employees run into trouble abroad – whether they’ve fallen ill or lost their luggage – we are always available to save you.
Why is a Corporate Travel Manager Important?
Business travel expenses represent the second largest expense for companies after employee salaries and benefits. Covid-19 reduced business travel in 2020, but this industry is still recovering at an encouraging stride and is expected to fully recover in the next few years. This means that travel will once again play a significant role for companies. Corporate travel should therefore be managed professionally. The best solution for this problem is to hire a corporate travel manager.
Frequently Asked Questions
How hiring a corporate manager will benefit an organization?
Once you hire a corporate travel manager, it will bring a strong sense of control to the corporate culture because there’s unmanaged travel that can lead to a lack of coordination and also cause increased costs while organizing the trips. The business travel manager is responsible for improving the team members’ business travel experience and ensuring their safety.
How can a travel manager differ from a travel agency?
Travel managers are responsible for the behind-the-scenes of a company’s business traveling strategy. They set up the guidelines, prioritize the rates, give recommendations to employees, and are generally in–house.
While on the other side, a travel agency only reserves flights, accommodation, and other aspects of business travel. With the Innovation of new technologies in the corporate travel sector, many of these tasks can be easily operated by the travel manager in a manner that is ideally in line with the company travel policy.
Qoni Got You
Worried about planning a business trip for your staff while under budget? No more problems when we have the right solution for this— Qoni Travel. Our company will develop the most innovative and cost-effective traveling solutions for your corporate travel managers to make your traveling experience the best.
To deliver a suitable solution to the return on investment for our clients, we combine personalized excellent service with market-leading technology to serve you with the best corporate traveling experience.
At Qoni, we prioritize exceeding industry benchmarks and customer expectations. We consistently strive to set new standards and demonstrate our commitment to excellence and continuous improvement.
Our experienced and professional team of travel consultants take the hassle out of corporate travel for you. You can easily trust us to efficiently manage your company’s traveling plans without worries. We’ll guarantee a cost-effective traveling experience, global professional experience, the use of advanced technology, and the most professional consultative programme management.
Conclusion
What is a corporate travel manager? And what does a travel manager do? These questions should not disturb you anymore after reading this blog. We clearly explained how corporate travel managers carry out responsibilities and tasks. In recent years the role of a travel manager has become an excellent choice for sorting out business travel’ issues.
If you are looking for a corporate travel company to sort out your business travelling issues, then you are at the right place; Qoni will serve you best.
