Elements of a Strong Corporate Travel Program

That is rightly named as the age of traveler-centricity and with the evolution of the brand new era of personalized travel; it is leading to research and development of a host of new so-called intelligent services. The command-and-control perspectives of traveling have changed a lot from the past and the focus has shifted more on the traveler and the productivity of each trip. It is now essential to keep up that the travelers have the maximum return on investment on each trip. New generations of young employees and managers, who've been growing up and dwelling in an electronic age, are moving up the ranks as travelers hotels near me. It is now essential to recognize the necessity for greater flexibility acknowledging that the employees who travel on corporate trips also consider a share of these trip to be a leisure outlet. With increasing globalization and rise in companies sending their staff overseas to network and connect with their offshore prospects/customers/suppliers, corporate travel is a highly profitable tourism segment. Before we speak about how tourism companies can better focus on business travelers, let us first look at why they prefer to make use of specialized corporate agencies over traditional agents

Why do businesses use Corporate Travel Agencies?

This may be the most basic question for a vacation agency as to the reasons they need to use agencies specializing in corporate travel when there are plenty of regular travel agents in the market. Here is the importance of corporate travel agencies who've online systems which allow business travelers access to their complete itinerary.

These information are at the fingertips of the CTAs:-

• full business itinerary details
• up-to-date tracking information on flights (including delays or rescheduling)
• transparent facts about additional costs such as for instance baggage fees or in-flight fees
• travel alerts, if any, in the destined area
• complete and up-to-date facts about the visa procurement policies and identification required
• currency requirement and conversion rates

What do corporate clients expect from Corporate Travel Agencies?

Negotiated Fares

The Corporate Agencies are apt to have tie-ups with hotels, car rentals, flights etc. providing them with access to lower fares which is often used only by the frequent business travelers. Discounted prices are not the sole advantage though as they also offer flight upgrades, room upgrades, and VIP check-in lines as required.

In-depth information about the travel industry

Corporate travel agents have access to numerous travel resources and most of all, quickly, than any leisure travel agent. Additional information helps to really make the business trips convenient and comfortable.

Changes in Itinerary

When an airline ticket needs to get rescheduled or cancelled, chances are the airline or the web company will charge lofty fees. When booking with a corporate travel agent, most of the times schedule changes can be done at zero or minimal extra charges.

Viable emergency contacts

It is essential for the company travelers to achieve the proper person at the necessity of trouble. Corporate travel agents have the experience and professionalism to alleviate stress for both traveler and the company.

What you need to consider as corporate travel increases?

Business Travel Barometer reported that corporate travel is witnessing an accelerated growth. However, when poorly managed, it could be no more an advantage to companies and may, in fact turn into a burden. There are a few factors which the corporations and CTAs must consider to get the best out of that time period spent traveling.

Adopting a vacation policy

The corporate must define a vacation policy which can be applicable to and respected by travelers at all levels. This policy should be properly used to determine the standards which will assist you to track the improvement of business travel. It could eventually help to lessen the costs of the whole package.

Do not limit the traveler's autonomy

The management is in charge of budgeting the travel policy which helps to improve cost management however, it can also be essential to give a qualification of autonomy to the traveler. The policy ought to be flexible enough allowing the employee to adapt the trip as per the situation.

Traveler's security should be a major concern

Business travelers need to have security in place. The business must stick to its definition of standards to ensure the employee's integrity. The CTAs must have reliable partners (travel insurance, airlines, hotel chains etc.).

Mobility and automation

To optimize time and ease the processes, the administration of management platforms must have automated processes. This means they need to adopt mobile solutions where search options, travel alerts, ticket reservations etc. can be accessed quickly, easily and on the go.

Corporate Travel Trends in 2016

Corporate travel trends tend to alter regularly. 2016 has also not been any different and the travel management companies (TMCs) and corporate travel agencies (CTAs) are quite focused to supply steady or even strong axis all over. An increasing MICE sector, investments in mobile and big data and enhanced give attention to duty of care are some of these regions of focus.

Rising prices

The consolidated buzzword among global suppliers, airfares, hotel rates etc. is the rising fares. It is sometimes the move of the suppliers to generate discounts which encourage travel if you have a strong decline in demand. A positive 2016 world economy has been bringing a growth in air fares of a few percentage points, hotels are likely to see 4%-6% rise in average global rates and the competition will remain moderate in the automobile rental services.

Duty of care

Risk management is one of many major points of emphasis for corporations. Corporate customers are allowing new policies and improved technologies to monitor employees' location in case of an emergency, especially when they are travelling to foreign destinations. For example, Concur Risk Messaging helps to recognize the travelers moving around in the world and alerts them with alternate travel arrangement as and when needed.

Emphasizing MICE

Meetings industry is really a major growing sector and the corporate travel trend is developing on it. The corporate travel agencies should better start aligning the various meeting procurement methodologies with its transient travel sourcing. One of many ways could possibly be to broaden the range of meeting services by incorporating incentive trips within it.

Buying technology

A sharper give attention to increasing value and becoming more traveler-centric can be done by bringing in mobile friendly technologies. Mobile and big data are certainly the two most significant technological investments which any corporate travel agency must focus to produce their platform more appealing.

Business travel analysis after Brexit

Following Brexit, ACTE and CAPA shared their speculations. According for them, the maximum short-term effects on the travel industry should come from the weakening of the pound against other world currencies. Greeley Koch, executive director for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives stated that the company travel industry will trend on currency fluctuations; with some companies using the weaker pound and traveling more, while others may withhold business travel until world markets find their very own level.

Impact of terrorism on corporate travelers

Travel policy makers and administrators have to be guided by rising terrorism scare. For executives and staff undertaking travel with respect to businesses, the travel agents and corporate travel agencies (CTAs) should prove the reassurance because of their safety through the travel policies. It is probably that the surveys conducted over corporate travelers reflect the typical concern of the global business travelers about the spate of terrorism. However, there's no denying the truth that terrorist threat is changing the patterns of business travel. The important thing impact of this is to keep in mind that the businesses providing travel services for business travelers need to improve their give attention to security and the associated risks in delivering the services to corporate clients. According to a current finding, travel managers have higher estimation of these policy's effectiveness in addressing risk in comparison to skeptical business travelers.

Concluding

Although the corporate travel sector has continued to progress, you will find an array of challenges faced by the industry hotels near me. A rapidly changing consumer market, the emergence of new business models, the impact of technology, man-made and natural crises are a number of the fulcrum points that have to be considered before planning corporate trips.