Rules On How Employees Should Book Corporate Travel

The process of booking corporate travel is an entire task in itself, which includes a lot of small stuff. Employees when it comes to corporate travel, need to manage numerous things such as stay arrangements, travel booking, etc. On the contrary, if you are a travel manager there comes several other responsibilities like creating itineraries, 24/7 support, ensuring the safety of the traveler and so much more.

With so much to handle and look after, the more time you save, the more efficiency you will get in your work. The best way of reducing your workload is to streamline the process of corporate travel booking. Looking to streamline the entire process of business travel for yourself or others?

This article contains some of the best rules that employers can follow to establish a worthy travel and expense policy, and also help simplify travel bookings.

Work On Creating A Standard Booking Sheet

Corporate travel management is a completely separate department and to ensure its smooth operation, it is recommended that you make a standard booking sheet. This sheet usually contains all the necessary information related to bookings. Some of the details that the sheet should contain include employee data like their phone number, passport details, passport, etc.

To ensure that the data is accurate, you should feed the data yourself. Alternatively, you can also draft a form and distribute it among your employees so that they do it themselves. Make sure that the fed data gets automatically exported to the booking sheet.

For corporate travel management, a standard booking sheet is critical. It helps manage varied requests and at the same time track all expenses and approvals easily.

Choose Digital Itinerary Files

Reducing paperwork brings efficiency and you can do so by going digital with your itinerary files. With things going digital the need for booking flight tickets and hotel bookings is long lost. All you need to do is to collate the required info in one doc and hand it over to the traveling employee. Numerous templates are available online for collating the information in one place.

This makes it easy for travelers since they don’t have to collect too many documents while traveling. The itinerary should contain everything required for the trip. That said, the purpose of travel should be included as well. For instance, when adding car rentals, the itinerary should contain its company name, date and time of pick-up and drop-offs, along with the location.

When including accommodation details mention the hotel name, room number, address, and also the check-in and check-out dates. At last, you should also include all business activities that they will attend. Like, if the employee has to attend a conference, mention the time, date, place, etc.

If there are a few other additional details that you need to add to the itinerary, you can create a folder, and in that folder save all the required documents separately. This helps boost accountability and transparency in the workplace.

Inventory Creation For Preferred Hotels

Frequent business travelers usually maintain a list of all preferred hotels they want to book. The choices depend on several factors like proximity to the workplace, quality of service, and accessibility of all major public transport. The list comes in handy when you have to book travel for any of the employees, and based on the location the person is traveling to, you can include hotels.

It will help you save a lot of time and effort that is otherwise spent on finding hotel details which is quite a tedious task. Creating a detailed hotel inventory always helps. The information contained should include hotel rates, address, contact details, and also the process to make bookings.

Building Relationship With Vendors and Providers

One of the most important responsibilities of a travel manager is to negotiate with the service providers and vendors. This part helps in preventing extra expenditure incurred on business trips. Furthermore, it also impacts the quality of the work environment and the satisfaction of travelers. Maintain a warm and good attitude when negotiating with the service providers so that the chances of a positive outcome increase.

This is much more than a simple requirement of business relationships. The allies of the travel manager may provide the management with better travel opportunities and rewards. It is always recommended that you should choose a travel service provider who can flexibly accommodate all required changes and cancellations at the last moment.

In case your travel provider cannot accommodate last-minute changes easily, it is never a bad idea to keep backup options in mind.

Travel Calendar Helps

A great deal of time and effort is saved by working on creating a travel itinerary for your business. The same can be used for your employees or for yourself to plan the trip well in advance. Leveraging a standard itinerary for corporate travel is invaluable. Using a standard template for creating a business itinerary when planning corporate travel helps a lot for yourself or your coworker.

Though setting it up all at once can be a task, when once done, it helps save an incredible amount of time and money. Furthermore, it will prevent you from forgetting the essential documents that you should carry along on the trip. With proper planning, you can ensure that all the check-ins, meetings, and departures happen at the right time.

Missing flights or getting late for the conference is an awful experience, and to avoid going through all of these, maintaining a travel itinerary is recommended. Planning a month is beneficial for flight bookings, accommodations, etc. Also, you can make all required last-minute changes.

The Bottom Line

Corporate travel turns out to be a great success for the employees or yourself when you have everything organized. Furthermore, it is advisable to stay diligent, on time, and prepared for everything in advance. Keeping the above-mentioned tips and rules in mind to make sure you master the art of managing corporate travels. It will help you become a pro at managing, planning, and negotiating travel for the employees of your company.