Corporate Travel Programme Optimisation Checklist

In today's dynamic business environment, marked by inflationary pressures, evolving business practices, and climate uncertainty, managing corporate travel effectively is more critical than ever. Global business travel spending is expected to reach $2 trillion within the next three years, yet it remains below pre-COVID levels when accounting for inflation. This necessitates that organisations strategically adapt their travel programmes to prioritise safety, enhance traveller experience, optimise compliance and spend control, integrate health and wellness, and foster sustainable practices.

A comprehensive approach, extending beyond mere reimbursement, is crucial to transform travel and expense (T&E) from a cost centre into a strategic asset. Emburse, a leader in AI-enabled Travel & Expense, offers end-to-end travel management software designed to help organisations navigate these complexities. Their solutions provide efficiency, time savings, increased financial visibility, enhanced spend control, and improved business travel experience.

To help future-proof your business travel programme for agility and traveller satisfaction, here is an optimisation checklist.

Step 1: Prioritize clear communication for all business travelers

Objective: To provide a clear travel management platform for business travellers, enable them with real-time insights for informed decisions, and strategise plans for their future journeys.

Effective communication ensures that employees are well-informed and can make decisions that align with company policies and safety guidelines.

• Review, approve, and distribute business travel timelines with all relevant stakeholders. ☐
• Create a robust communication plan to regularly update corporate travellers on safe travel locations, regulatory requirements, corporate travel policy updates, and provide resources specifically for women and minority groups. ☐
• Test communication protocols and channels to ensure deliverability and effectiveness. ☐
• Compile and list reputable travel options and websites that offer up-to-date information on current regulations and conditions, categorised by location for easy access. ☐
• Clearly articulate required traveller profile updates and documentation necessary for both domestic and international travel. ☐
• Prompt travellers to check directly with organisations (e.g., airlines, hotels) to confirm any additional rules for outside visitors. ☐
• Collaborate with Human Resources regarding policies for returning to the office after a business trip for office-based employees. ☐

Step 2: Create a seamless travel experience

Objective: To create a frictionless employee travel experience, empowering them to make well-informed purchasing decisions that align with their personal preferences while remaining compliant with company travel policy.

A seamless experience boosts employee satisfaction and productivity, which is vital for talent retention in a changing workforce landscape. Emburse's mobile-first solutions streamline travel planning, booking, and expense management, eliminating manual, time-consuming processes.

• Update your corporate travel policy to set clear limits and provide advanced booking suggestions for every type of expense, including air, rail, rental cars, rideshares, and other sharing economy vendors. ☐
• Enhance your travel policy with addendums to address temporary changes, such as hybrid work expense policies, handling non-preferred vendors, or situations where negotiated amenities are unavailable. ☐
• Publish your travel and expense policy to a central location and within your expense solution, ensuring travelling employees have easy access. ☐
• Enhance travel budget management and rationalise the investment in each business trip by leveraging assessments and pre-trip approval workflows. Emburse provides instant virtual and physical corporate cards with built-in controls and supports pre-approval authorisations to improve budget visibility and cost control. ☐
• Create custom policy controls that automatically flag non-compliant or out-of-preferred-vendor travel expenses. Emburse's solutions automate compliance checking and approval routing, reducing back-and-forth over minor discrepancies. ☐
• Streamline and automate your expense submission, review, and approval process to eliminate cumbersome workflows and capture all required expense and travel data. Advanced solutions offer mobile apps for scanning receipts and generating reports with ease, leading to significant time savings. ☐
• Delegate backup approvers in case the primary approver is unavailable, ensuring continuity. ☐
• Implement post-trip traveller engagement surveys to guide the crucial task of rebuilding a successful travel programme. ☐
• Ensure travellers know their emergency contacts and how to get assistance while on the road. ☐
• Leverage a self-service travel management solution with apps that simplify everything from travel booking to checking in or out of hotels. This includes seamless integration with third-party, app-driven solutions for booking, payment, and expensing transactions. ☐

Step 3: Prioritise health and wellness for corporate travellers

Objective: To implement an effective managed travel programme that upholds the physical and mental well-being of each corporate traveller.

Considering the well-being of employees is crucial for a future-ready travel programme.

• Provide corporate travel services, opportunities, and tools for employees to assess travel risks related to their trips. ☐
• Compile comprehensive travel risk management assessment reports detailing globally consolidated data, especially before travel to high-risk destinations. ☐
• Collaborate with Human Resources to ensure proper duty of care and address potential risks in business travel. ☐
• Implement a wellness programme to help employees cope with travel-related stressors both at home and abroad. ☐
• Supply additional mental health and supplemental insurance resources to ensure travellers can access quality care regardless of personal coverage. ☐
• Check in with employees regularly to ensure they feel supported and comfortable travelling on behalf of the company. ☐

Step 4: Build strategic relationships with suppliers

Objective: To build strong relationships with preferred suppliers to meet everyone’s expectations.

Leveraging data and fostering strong supplier relationships can lead to significant cost savings and better service delivery. Emburse Travel Analytics provides automated tools and services for corporate air and hotel travel management, including real-time re-shopping, supplier contract auditing, and benchmarking capabilities.

• Leverage travel data analytics to shape your travel policy, identify savings opportunities, and encourage better booking decisions. Emburse's reporting and analytics tools provide deep insights into travel programmes, identifying trends and supporting vendor negotiations. ☐
• Regularly communicate with preferred suppliers to identify any influences that may impact availability, rates, or amenities. ☐
• Renegotiate terms to account for modified travel volumes so that you can maintain negotiated contracts. ☐
• Review contracts for additional fees that may have been recently introduced, such as enhanced cleaning procedures. ☐
• Request additional information about changes to service routes due to unforeseen circumstances. ☐
• Understand a vendor’s sanitation protocols to ensure traveller safety and whether additional fees apply. ☐
• Target environmental, social, and governance (ESG) goals with suppliers by:
• Lowering carbon footprint through selecting vendors that offset emissions via carbon credits or other sustainability initiatives like fuel sources. ☐
• Selecting hotel options with environmentally friendly procedures, policies, and amenities. ☐
• Choosing a rental car supplier that offers hybrid vehicles to reduce emissions. ☐

Future-proof your travel programme for agility and traveller satisfaction

Emburse's automated air and hotel re-shopping service, Emburse Reshop, continuously searches for lower rates on every booking, every day, and automatically rebooks travellers to the best available price. This can lead to typical hotel spend savings of 1.5% to 3%. The platform also provides always-on auditing technology to track and review negotiated rates and supplier contracts, ensuring they are available and correct for every booking. Furthermore, it offers fair market share analysis to independently measure your organisation’s market share against others.

A strategically optimised travel programme, built for agility amidst shifting conditions, ensures that your organisation maximises the value of each trip. By integrating flexible and proactive solutions, like those offered by Emburse, you can future-proof your organisation’s travel programme and empower your team to capitalise on emerging opportunities, driving sustained business impact.