When it comes to travel management, a quality business travel management firm can not only lighten your workload, they can improve your productivity in the process.
Here is a list of why companies use travel agents, how they add value and provide solutions to common travel issues.
Business Travel Solutions
1. Guarantee Hard Savings
A good business travel management company will be able to offer hard savings and exceptional value.
That means you keep the numbers well within budget lines and still provide the best experience in each class of travel.
2. Online Booking Management
Using app systems for online booking not only allows travellers to check-in online, but also streamlines the whole process, making it quick and easy to set up travel and monitor its progress.
The app displays results from both scheduled and low-cost carriers, a wide variety of hotel options, and land travel options in addition to flights.
The best rates and fares will be clearly displayed for you in a manner that is both easy to understand and use, and which complies to your company’s travel policy and authorisation process.
3. Management Information
An additional benefit of using this system is that management can look at the data from individual travellers, departments, or across the whole company.
Data presentation is stylish and easy to understand. Different levels of access can be set, so that team leaders can see their team’s data; department heads can see their department’s data, etc.
Perhaps best of all, it is in the system as soon as you make a booking, and reports take almost no time to generate.
It is a quick, versatile, and comprehensive tool to gain and understand the big picture of your company’s corporate travel.
Information and reports can easily be shared between users, and you can export data to .csv or .xls formats with a single click.
4. Travel Itineraries
Itineraries used to be sheets of paper, or a file on a screen, but with the innovative Meon Dashboard, you can follow multiple travellers’ itineraries and progress in real-time, 24/7.
View it as a dedicated web page, or via Outlook. The data included is fully customisable and any changes made to reservations are automatically updated. Using the Dashboard, you have easy access to information that would have required a phone call or email in the past.
Now you can even book itineraries and sync them with travellers’ calendars.
This system automatically completes many of the redundant steps executive assistants used to have to do – and many are still doing.
Perhaps best of all, this automation removes the risk of typos, or missed steps that could result in failure to secure or communicate a booking or change.
5. Risk Management
Speaking of risk… Most trips are very routine, but sometimes situations occur that can be dangerous.
You’ll want to mitigate risks and know that there is a plan in place should there be any kind of emergency – natural disaster, local unrest, infrastructure failure, etc.
Business travel risk management apps provide SOS response, direct incident assistance, continuous tracking of travellers in real-time, Push alerts, security updates and other emergency support.
6. Cashless Business Payments
Not only can flights and other major purchases be completed via the app, but permissions can be granted that allow your company to pay for approved expenses directly, via each traveller’s phone, using a Virtual Card (VC).
This allows employees and contractors, even those without access to a corporate card, to make purchases simply, without the added admin of reimbursement.
Travellers can photograph invoices and receipts, so record-keeping for both parties is very easy.
Records of the purchase are automatically in the system, and the data is available for analytics at any time from the moment of purchase.
This feature can be used in lieu of a card for checking into hotels too.
The virtual card can be ‘flipped over’ at the registration desk, and used just like a traditional card.
In order to prevent additional or accidental use, it can even be set so that, once the stay is over and the checkout process is complete, the virtual card disappears from the phone or device.
The process is seamless, faster, and more secure than traditional methods. It is also, importantly, fully GDPR-compliant.
7. Tailored to Your Needs
A good travel management company, will provide you with a personalised service, understanding that your company processes vary. We will adapt to meet your needs, rather than you having to adapt to meet ours.
We respond to these varied needs by tailoring the service specifically to your company.
We back up our innovative technology with real people, dedicated and well-trained to make sure your travel needs are met and your expectations exceeded wherever possible – and all the while providing you with excellent value, with minimal effort on your part.
How to Choose a Business Travel Agency
We know your job can be difficult.
There are a lot of moving parts and a constantly-changing set of needs.
Difficult travel can increase stress and tension, and no one wants that.
Our goal is to help reduce redundant actions, eliminating needless effort and improving overall performance, success, and quality of your work – all to improve your executives’ travel experience.
Our job is to help you do your job… and we’re proud to do it.
Give us a call and let’s discuss how we can help you and your company save money and improve travel experiences.
Need help organising your business travel? Get in touch with our travel experts
