What is corporate travel management?
Corporate travel management is a service that organises and coordinates travel for businesses. It aims to reduce travel-related admin, improve travel efficiency, and streamline expenses.
Corporate travel programs can be managed internally, through the use of corporate travel planning tools, and potentially, with the help of a corporate travel management consulting company.
Alternatively, corporate travelling can be outsourced to one of the many global travel management companies and agencies that offer corporate travel management services.
This article will discuss everything you need to know about corporate travel management, how it revolutionises the hotel industry, and a reliable tech provider you can partner with for corporate travel management .
Table of contents
What is the difference between a corporate travel management company and corporate travel agencies?
What are corporate travel managers? To find out, let’s compare two of the main types: companies and agencies.
Corporate travel agencies are similar to the standard travel agencies that you might use to book a holiday: they simply handle the booking of travel-related services like flights, hotels and car rentals.
A corporate travel management company, meanwhile, offers broader strategic management of a business’s travel needs. Beyond booking flights, hotels and cars, they can help to create corporate travel policies, control travel costs, ensure traveller safety, negotiate with travel vendors, and analyse data to improve the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of a business’s travel needs into the future.
What is the biggest responsibility of corporate travel management?
One of the most important aspects of corporate travel management is maintaining traveller safety which is always paramount. The best corporate travel management companies will also ensure that company policies are complied with.
While there’s no single biggest responsibility, corporate travel management providers need to work within travel budgets and optimise travel arrangements for efficiency, comfort, and convenience.
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The value of corporate travel management
Corporate travel management is valuable for a number of reasons:
Corporate travel management helps companies control travel costs
The cost of hotels, flights and car rentals can vary significantly depending on what is booked and when it’s booked, which can potentially lead to overspend. Corporate travel management ensures the best deals are found and travel budgets are worked within. Large, international corporate travel management companies also have the power to negotiate better deals with vendors.
Corporate travel management improves travel efficiency
Efficiency gains can be made in two main ways. Booking a business trip can be time consuming, but corporate travel management can streamline the admin of corporate travel. It can also increase the efficiency of the travel itself, as good management ensures the most convenient flights and hotels are booked for every trip.
Corporate travel management enhances employee safety
A structured approach to corporate travel management enhances traveller safety by ensuring all relevant policies are complied with. Data analysis can also help with risk management.
How international corporate travel management revolutionises the hotel industry
Corporate travel management represents a potential windfall for any hotel open to targeting the business travel set.
Recent statistics reveal that US-based companies are expected to spend as much (and perhaps even more) on corporate travel than they did pre-pandemic, powered by a year-on-year growth rate of 8-12%. The value of the business travel sector will even reach USD $829.5 billion within the next five years.
Beyond the sheer size of the business travel market, corporate travellers are attractive to hotels for a number of reasons:
- They tend to book stays more frequently, and often for extended periods.
- They are less price-sensitive than leisure travellers.
- They book during weekdays, helping hotels to maximise occupancy.
- They are loyal and provide a steady stream of revenue due to their contractual nature
Corporate travel management groups, teams, companies, agencies and consultancies are the conduit through which a hotel can gain access to this valuable market. By actively targeting corporate travel managers, you can unlock a significant revenue stream for your hotels.
How corporate travel management systems adapt to changing times
Corporate travel management systems have adapted and evolved a lot in recent years. Much of this change has been in response to a few key events, including COVID and the explosion of AI and other technologies. Key adaptations include:
- Automation and AI: Corporate travel managers are increasingly using AI recommendations during the trip planning phase, and automated booking platforms and virtual assistants to streamline the booking and management of corporate trips.
- Mobile solutions: The best corporate travel management systems offer mobile apps that allow corporate travel managers and travellers to manage bookings, receive real-time updates, and access itineraries on the go.
- Risk management: Enhanced traveller tracking, safety alerts and health protocols have been implemented to address growing concerns around security and health risks, particularly post-pandemic.
- Sustainability: Many corporate travel management systems now include options for tracking and reducing the carbon footprint of travel to cater to the growing corporate responsibility movement.
- Personalisation: Corporate travel management systems are beginning to utilise traveller data to offer more personalised, tailored solutions based on individual preferences, which can improve both employee satisfaction and compliance with company policies.
What is the best corporate travel management platform for hotels?
The best corporate travel management platform for your hotel will depend on the needs and goals of your hotel business, and the specific corporate market that you’re looking to capitalise on, as certain platforms can cater to certain types of business traveller.
Traditionally, corporate travel management software is built for the businesses booking the travel, whether a company’s internal corporate travel management team, or the third-party corporate travel providers like agencies and consultancies who might book and manage travel on a business’s behalf.
But there are corporate travel management solutions designed for hotels and accommodation providers too. Corporate travel management platforms for hotels generally focus on two things: expanding the hotel’s reach in the corporate and B2B space, and crafting compelling content that convinces businesses to choose a hotel.
An example is CTM Sleep Space, a corporate travel-focused content platform that aims to enhance your hotel’s visibility in the business travel sphere. It is designed to simplify the search process for corporate travellers, while providing hotels with more exposure in this ultra-competitive market.
Corporate travel management features hotels should look for
Corporate travel management solutions can vary greatly in terms of their functionality. But there’s one feature that is critical no matter what type of corporate travel management tool you’re looking to implement: integration capability.
The corporate travel management platform you choose should be capable of integrating seamlessly into your current hotel tech stack to ensure the tool can work with all your other systems, from your property management system (PMS) to your payment processor.
SiteMinder offers an exclusive integration with CTM Sleep Space, the hotel-focused corporate travel platform. This opens up the opportunity for endless automation, where the tools take care of the menial tasks, leaving you and your staff to focus on the high value, difference-making work.
Jon Murphy,
Consultant Revenue Director
Kaleidoscope Collection
How to implement corporate travel management in hotel businesses
There are three main ways you can integrate corporate travel management into your hotel operations:
1. Applying strategies for managing corporate travel effectively
Managing corporate travel efficiently and effectively requires your hotel to adopt targeted strategies that address the specific needs of business travellers, which can be very different to the needs of leisure travellers.
Firstly, you need to work to attract corporate business, and aim to build long-term relationships with corporate clients. You need to bring a corporate travel focus to your distribution strategy, and once you’ve got your foot in the door, you should encourage return business through loyalty programmes and exclusive discounts.
You might consider offering business-focused rates and perks that appeal to this segment: free and fast Wi-Fi, early check-in, dedicated workspaces, and conference rooms.
You could also train your team to better manage corporate clients, from your front desk handling complex corporate bookings, to your concierge providing business-focused recommendations to any travellers who might need them.
2. Addressing challenges of global travel management
Corporate travel management in the UK or corporate travel management in the US: wherever you are in the world, global corporate travel management can be a complex dance that presents a suite of unique challenges. Here are a few potential issues that your hotel might face while servicing this segment, and how to navigate them:
- Corporate expectations: Business customers can have higher expectations in terms of changing and cancelling bookings than leisure customers might, so you may need to offer more flexibility than you otherwise would. Corporate customers will also obviously be looking for a reward for their loyalty – and a significant rate discount can often be more than worth it for your hotel to gain access to this valuable market.
- Currencies and fluctuating exchange rates: Ensure you choose a reliable payment processing system that supports multiple currencies, and that offers you the best possible exchange rate at any given moment.
- Time zone differences: When you cater to corporate customers around the globe, it’s wise to have a team working 24/7 to ensure that every question can be answered and every request can be enacted efficiently.
- Diverse cultural attitudes: It’s critical that your staff understand the cultural differences they will encounter, and how expectations might differ from guest to guest depending on where they’re from, so that the best possible experience is always offered.
3. Integrating travel management solutions into your tech stack
As mentioned above, if you’re going to get the maximum possible return from your corporate travel management software investment, you need to ensure the solution you choose will integrate seamlessly with your current tech stack.
Check the integration capability of a prospective corporate travel management solution against your PMS, CRM, and booking engines to ensure it will form an organic addition to your current tech ecosystem.
Advantages of integrating corporate travel management software with existing hotel systems
Why is corporate travel management integration such a key piece of the puzzle? A few reasons:
- Real-time data sharing: Integrated tools talk to each other without the need for you, a human intermediary, to get involved.
- Automate workflows: With your tools talking to one another, you can automate previously manual tasks. Example: Updating corporate travel rates and availability across all your distribution channels at once, rather than editing them one by one.
- Greater accuracy: Integration not only increases efficiency, it removes the opportunity for human error from things like manual data entry.
By optimising workflows, hotels can effectively manage corporate bookings and tailor services to meet the needs of business clients. To further boost corporate bookings, consider leveraging partnerships with specialised platforms like CTM Sleep Space.
