How Can Your Travel Managers/EAs Improve 80% Efficiency in Corporate Travel Management?

You must be familiar with travel responsibilities as a travel manager or an executive assistant (EA). With so much on your plate already, juggling between various travel tasks can feel like an uphill battle. These challenges are never-ending, from booking flights and hotels to managing last-minute changes to keep costs under control.

In fact, according to GBTA, 47% of travel managers face immense stress that is hindering their corporate travel management ability. Meanwhile, inefficiencies in travel planning can drain up to 30% of your time.

But what if we told you could boost your productivity and efficiency by 80%? Without any stress from handling every employee’s travel? Just imagine streamlined approvals, seamless travel booking, and error-free data. Sounds too good to be true, right?

In this blog, we will discuss how you can improve your productivity and enhance the travel experience for your employees.

Understanding the Challenges of Travel Managers/EAs

Travel documentation can accumulate rapidly for corporations managing hundreds or thousands of frequently traveling employees. Issues such as a missing receipt delaying an expense report or a travel administrator having difficulty reconciling multiple trips for a quarterly review can arise. The manual process of requesting, locating, and filing these documents often leads to vital inefficiencies.

Before diving into the solutions, let’s understand a few more travel challenges travel managers, administrators & EAs face.

1. Juggling Between Multiple Websites/Tabs for Booking

Do you continuously navigate different websites and tools for booking flights and hotels? Do you feel a lot of time is wasted? Well, you are not alone.

Managing all the travel bookings from different websites for various employees is a cumbersome task. Moreover, some travelers also book travel from various websites. Tracking these is overwhelming and leads to exhaustion and mental fatigue. 

This, in turn, results in data and over-sight errors, which is risky and can impact your business.

2. Midnight Calls and Last Minute Emergencies

Do you often have to wake up at midnight for panic calls from travelers? Are you frequently stuck with booking last-minute flights due to delays? Handling these emergencies without round-the-clock support can be a nightmare, leaving you struggling for solutions.

Over time, this constant pressure can take a toll on your work performance and personal life. You may struggle to balance managing urgent travel crises and maintaining your well-being. 

3. Struggling to Manage Business Travel Costs

Most travel managers don’t get discounts or negotiate rates with airlines, hotels, or car rentals. This lack of access to competitive pricing directly impacts your travel budget. Hence, there are higher expenses for services that could have been secured at a lower cost.

Moreover, these missed opportunities for savings can lead to cost leakages in your corporate travel management process. This is especially problematic during times when cost optimization is critical. Eventually, you pay more than necessary for the same travel services. 

4. Scouring Emails for Traveler Details

As a travel manager/EA, you might encounter a sea of emails daily. You’re stuck in constantly searching for travelers’ details, preferences, passport information, or loyalty points. Without a robust application or a streamlined process, this process can get chaotic and wastes valuable time. 

In many companies, different people are responsible for various aspects of corporate travel management. While one travel manager may be in charge of booking travel for the whole company, the other is responsible for purchasing the platform for others. 

But sometimes, you may have to book for high-level executives in the company, such as the CFO. You must sift through multiple email threads to gain travel details. This is a time-consuming and inefficient process. 

5. No Access to Detailed Reports

As a travel manager/EA, you often struggle with fragmented data in corporate travel management. You must pull information from multiple sources, which is time-consuming. Centralized invoice storage is rarely available, making it more challenging.

Additionally, accessing individual folios for specific travelers adds another layer of complexity. These inefficiencies make reporting tedious and prone to errors.

Corporate Travel Management Solutions to Overcome These Challenges

A dependable and secure solution for simplifying the retrieval of travel receipts and itineraries is essential for ensuring smooth operations and enhancing productivity. Businesses require tools that address the challenges as mentioned above and can scale to meet the demands of a dynamic and fast-paced environment.

You can easily overcome these challenges by adopting the right strategies, using modern tools, and eliminating traditional methods. Here’s how:

1. Leverage All-In-One Travel Platform

Ditch the method of travel bookings on different platforms and use an all-in-one travel platform. Here, you can book flights, hotels, and car rentals in one place. With such a platform, you can centrally manage all your traveler bookings and ensure a smooth corporate travel management process.

Not only that, you can modify the existing bookings and change the itineraries without any inconvenience. All your traveler details are stored here, eliminating the need to follow up with travelers or browse your emails.

One such platform that you can opt for is itilite. This travel management software lets you bring all your traveler bookings under one roof. This makes your process faster, easier, and more reliable.

Check out the video to understand the role of travel managers in the US:

2. Ensure Traveler Safety with 24/7/365 Support 

Ensuring travelers’ safety and assisting them during emergencies is crucial in corporate travel management. Therefore, you must onboard a travel management company that provides round-the-clock support for stranded travelers.

Whether it’s a flight cancellation at midnight or a hotel overbooking issue, providing timely support enhances the travel experience for employees. Support must be provided through various channels such as chat, call, and email. This should be done outside working hours and on weekends to ensure seamless travel.

You may also like: How Important is Business Travel Support for Travelers

3. Unlock Corporate Deals and Maximize Rewards

One of the easiest ways to save on travel costs is by negotiating deals and discounts with airlines, hotels, and car rental companies. These corporate rates often provide significant cost reductions compared to standard pricing.

This helps your organization optimize its travel budgets. By securing such deals, companies can ensure employees travel comfortably without overspending. This ensures every trip is cost-effective and efficient.

Some of the TMCs integrate corporate deals into your booking process. This way, you always get the best rates. Simultaneously, you can earn loyalty points on all your bookings- whether it is airlines, hotels, or car rentals.

4. No More Email Scouring-Get Travelers’ Details Instantly

A traveler dashboard simplifies your email scouring process. By centralizing all essential traveler details, you can access them instantly without needing email searches or spreadsheets. All you need is data to present it to the senior management. With a traveler dashboard, you can streamline your reporting capabilities. You can quickly gather and present traveler information without any hassle.

Here is what you get: 

• Search by Traveler Name : With a centralized dashboard, you can quickly find all relevant details. You get contact information, travel preferences, and loyalty program numbers by entering their names.
• Access Comprehensive Profiles : You can view frequent flyer numbers and specific requirements like meal preferences. This ensures a personalized booking experience.
• Modify or Update Details : You can make booking changes seamlessly, with all traveler data readily available in one place.

5. Simplify Reporting with Effortless Data Access

Gone are the days of manually consolidating data from multiple sources. With a single click, you can now download comprehensive travel data. You can get access to reports containing information about bookings, expenses, and trip details. This feature saves hours of effort and ensures you always have up-to-date information at your fingertips.

You can access hotel folios for auditing, reimbursement, or reviewing specific travel details. In your corporate travel management process, TMCs like itilite procure it from individual hotels and store it on the platform You can access these folios, reduce errors, eliminate follow-ups, and save time with a single click.

Corporate Travel Management Made Easy with itilite

Making corporate travel management a seamless process need not be a daunting task. By addressing the common challenges, you can drastically reduce inefficiencies and enhance your productivity.

With modern and innovative software such as itilite, you can centralize your travel bookings, ensure traveler safety, and get sky-high savings on travel costs. You can access an all-in-one platform, round-the-clock support, centralized dashboards, negotiated rates, and access to reports in a single click.

The result? A seamless, efficient, and stress-free travel management experience for both you and your employees.

To know more about itilite, book a free demo now.