How to create a corporate travel program: Guide

Corporate travel management programs are a great step forward to automate business travel and oversee how your team manages the process.

Below you’ll find a complete guide on corporate travel programs, their benefits and challenges, and what smooth implementation would look like.

What is a corporate travel program?

A corporate travel program is an extensive system of rules and procedures that handles all aspects of your company’s business travel. The program helps employees organize their own business travel and be independent when planning, while also staying within your policies.

A business travel program comes in many shapes and forms:

• An app
• A website
• An internal portal
• An external service you opt for

What’s the difference between a travel program and a travel policy?

Managing corporate travel is no easy task. Your company needs to be prepared with lots of internal documents and policies.

A travel policy is an overarching set of rules for how your company views corporate travel. From allocated budgets to underlining how to ensure duty of care, a travel policy should be the priority for your corporate travel agenda.

A company travel program is created around a business travel policy. If the policy is theoretical, the corporate travel management program lays out how rules and regulations would apply in real-life scenarios.

Benefits of having a corporate travel program

Employees tend to organize business trips by themselves, which is often easier than going through official channels. However, this can lead to a lack of oversight and employees not following protocol because it wasn’t communicated properly or even known.

Putting a corporate travel plan in motion can bring you and your company benefits like:

• Increased control over the process – By setting up a corporate travel program, you can simplify and create a step-by-step process that would be easy to use for your employees.
• The ability to add only approved options – If you want your employees to collaborate with specific vendors or partners you have contracts with, you can set your corporate travel program to only show those options.
• Increased financial oversight – Receipts are easily lost, and expensing travel costs can be difficult for corporate travelers. Bypass these problems by centralizing them all in one app or program.
• Time saved – By keeping all the necessary information in one place, your employees won’t have to spend hours searching for the cheapest option or most convenient flight.
• Ensured duty of care – With a corporate travel planner, you can also share safety tips for the destination country and what to prepare before the trip.

What to include in a corporate travel program

Keep in mind that a business travel program is specifically made to help employees and facilitate their travels. Here are a few key elements that will make your corporate travel plan successful:

Make it easy to use

No one will want to use your team travel program if it adds extra steps or the instructions are too complicated to follow. For this reason, remember that your average employee doesn’t have time to dive into your travel policy, and it’s your responsibility to present this information in the clearest, most concise way possible.

Be very clear what the budget caps are

Keeping the whole process transparent is the best way to gain your employees’ trust while managing expectations for everyone. Consider adding these limits to your app/planner:

• Total monthly flight spend
• Lowest/highest fares accepted
• Unused budget still available
• Total monthly accommodation spend
• Expected spending per region/country

Tips and tricks for the selected region

Based on the region, create a dynamic page to help travelers prepare and understand expectations. This list should include:

• Necessary visa and insurance
• Necessary medical control
• Documents they should pack
• Type of plugs and chargers they should pack
• Currency in the destination country
• Any important news or political unrest in the destination country

Ideas for free time

Seeing how popular bleisure travel has become, take into account that employees may spend a few days relaxing or immersing themselves in the local culture.

Adding a page with popular tourist attractions or recommended restaurants would be helpful for employees.

Packing list and details

To ensure a great experience for your business travelers, we recommend adding a page with a simple packing checklist.

You can also recommend corporate travel apps.

How to implement a corporate travel program

A business travel program should be made through collaboration with all your business’s departments. This way you’ll ensure everything is up to speed and everyone will be happy with the end results.

Senior Leadership, Finance, HR, and business travelers themselves will all have opinions, views, and ideas on your travel management program. However, while input from colleagues can be helpful, it’s not always easy to keep everyone happy about travel management.

To make sure everyone in your company is content and that you can start implementing a corporate travel plan, make sure you:

1. Ask what specific metrics they want to see and how frequently they want this information. Dashboards are an effective way to share reports and make sure you get the results you’re expecting.
2. Measure the financial impact of your team’s travel program. That way, even if it’s not saving your company money, you’ll still see a change in employee satisfaction rates and willingness to travel for business.
3. Follow up with corporate travelers and get their feedback during the beta testing of the app or process. The higher the satisfaction rate, the more employees will want to use the program you’ve set in place.

Potential challenges of a corporate travel program

The main challenge you’ll encounter when releasing and implementing your business travel program is getting your whole company on board with it.

Below you’ll find some of the reasons your employees may not want to use your plan and what solutions will help.

Employees aren’t aware

Whenever you introduce a new tool or app for your employees, half the work is presenting it and making everyone aware of the change.

Tip: Mention the new corporate travel plan in your company-wide newsletter, groups, and chats. You should also personally inform your top business travelers about the new tool.

Sudden transition

Introducing a new tool takes time and patience. Although you might want to rush its implementation, trust the process and provide enough time for change to happen.

Tip: Set realistic milestones for implementation – it’s not an overnight transition.

Uncertain about how to use it

Not all employees will be familiar or comfortable with using new technology. Helping all your employees understand the process will save you time and money in the long run.

Tip: Create tutorials and ask for feedback as much as possible. Always consider the possibility of simplifying the process.

Not seeing the benefits of using it

Introducing business travel booking software can be a big change, especially when the previous way of planning corporate travel was working just fine.

Tip: Offer incentives and rewards for people who use the app, and slowly transition from the outdated version to the new one.

Relying on a corporate travel program is a great solution for your company. By having control over travel spending, the travel booking process, and implementation of your corporate travel policy, you can avoid problems in the future.

By understanding both the benefits of creating a travel management program and the potential problems when implementing it, you can find the right path to move forward.