Companies have been making huge savings on business travel during these pandemic times. Video meetings save time, money, and environmental impact. But when it comes to building relationships face to face meetings and socials can be well worth the investment.
As we look to getting back to normal business travel though, it’s clear that a balance needs to be found. We’ve learned that cutting down on jet-setting has not been as damaging as we might have thought. Many companies plan to go forward with substantially less business travel. And there is pressure to cut costs when business travel is essential.
The good news is there are ways that you can reduce costs without risking employees’ safety or comfort. Here are 3 ways to spend less on business travel, while still providing employees with comfort and security on their trips.
Have Clear Travel Rules
There can be exceptions in drastic cases, but the rules on planning business travels need to be clear. Employees must schedule their business trips in advance to manage payments and choose the most convenient booking at reasonable prices, without having to resort to last-minute available tickets and accommodation. Last-minute bookings are very expensive and need to be prohibited, except in very rare exceptions. Doing this will show a noticeable reduction in travel expenses.
All trips must be approved by the manager or the business owner, which means there should be a form submitted by any employee who needs to travel.
Make sure the person traveling has a set budget. Expenses can be limited to approved items, for example you may have an upper-cost limit for meals and a cap on alcohol. If employees want to exceed those limits then they can reimburse the company for any excess.
To ensure employee business trips don’t exceed the budget set by the company, using a business travel management platform such as TravelPerk can be a great way to keep travel costs to a minimum and have accurate reporting in a single dashboard.
Find the Best Insurance Offer
Travel insurance can be pretty expensive, and you may find yourself spending so much money on an offer that another company may have for much less. Insurance plan comparisons on the My Choice Financial platform have proven that the pricing of similar packages can vary when offered by different companies. They recommend that business managers and owners do thorough research before deciding on suitable packages for all aspects of their businesses or everyday lives.
Make Smart Deals with Other Companies
Depending on how big your operation is, there can be bulk discounts to be had if you set up exclusive deals with providers. For example: travel agents, car hire, taxis, airlines etc.
Many travel sector providers also offer membership options, where even the smallest company can start to benefit from frequent user offers and discounts. Hotels chains are renowned for those types of perks.
Final thoughts
The biggest saving though is not to travel at all. For every trip, ask yourself, is this really necessary? It’s worth setting up preliminary video meetings as a matter of course. If a follow-up is necessary then, of course, you should go ahead, but in quite a few cases there will be no need.
Where travel is essential there is a lot you can do to reduce the cost and impact. All it takes is a bit of planning and foresight. Put these steps in place and you will be good to go.