The business travel industry has seen dramatic changes in recent years, from cutting-edge technology to evolving travel trends. This has placed a heavy responsibility on travel managers, who are now tasked with overseeing every aspect of a business trip—from when it’s announced until the traveler returns home.
To manage this increased responsibility, travel managers must partner with a tech-savvy Travel Management Company (TMC) that offers advanced software solutions. These tools help control costs, elevate the travel experience, and prioritize traveler safety.
But how do you know which TMC is the right fit for your company? The answer lies in the RFP – Request for Proposal. Using an RFP evaluation process, you can compare and assess travel management solutions based on key criteria.
In this blog, we’ll break down what an RFP is, how to evaluate one, and how to choose the best TMC based on RFP responses to ensure a seamless, efficient, and cost-effective travel management experience.
What is an RFP?
An RFP, or Request for Proposal, is a formal document that organizations use to solicit proposals from potential vendors or service providers. It’s a common practice in industries like business travel management, where companies need to evaluate multiple solutions to find the best fit for their needs. Essentially, an RFP outlines the company’s requirements and invites vendors to submit detailed proposals that explain how they can meet those needs.
In the context of travel management, an RFP helps businesses assess various Travel Management Companies (TMCs) based on specific criteria like cost, technology, services offered, and the ability to ensure traveler safety. It typically includes a description of the company’s travel policies, goals, and any challenges the company is facing, allowing vendors to tailor their responses accordingly.
The RFP process allows for a structured evaluation of the solutions available in the market, providing clarity on each vendor’s approach, pricing, and how they will deliver value. It helps organizations make informed decisions by comparing responses against predefined benchmarks and expectations.
By using an RFP, companies ensure they are selecting a travel management solution that aligns with their goals, budget, and priorities, leading to better travel experiences and improved cost management. It’s a critical step in making strategic, data-driven decisions when choosing a TMC or any service provider.To learn more about how much you can save by choosing the right TMC through business travel RFPs, check out our free calculator tools.
Free RFP Evaluation Template for Travel Management Services
Here is a travel RFP template you can use to evaluate the responses from various TMCs. Feel free the RFP evaluation template by customize it according to your needs.
RFP evaluation template for travel management services is as important as sending out the RFP. There are multiple factors that you need to consider to find the perfect solution for your organization.
How to Evaluate RFP Responses from TMCs: Key Factors
Before evaluating the RFPs for travel management services, it’s essential to have a list of factors that align with your company’s needs. This will help you critically analyze each element during selection and speed up the evaluation process.
Some essential factors to look out for are:
1. Expertise
While evaluating the travel management company, you should look into the company’s expertise over RFPs. Look for the experience and knowledge base of the vendor.
Here are a few questions you must ask:
- A brief company background
- How long have they been in the industry?
- Who are their major clients and what is the average account size of each client?
With the responses to these questions, you will get an idea of the expertise they have in your industry or as a travel management company in general. Moreover, you need to check whether the travel management company has successfully delivered for clients.
Make sure you check references and case studies of different clients that include everything about how the travel solution provider helped the client solve a particular problem.
2. The TMC Pricing Structure
The pricing framework of the TMC holds considerable importance in assessing the responses to your RFP for travel management services. It’s imperative to guarantee that the pricing model remains transparent, devoid of concealed fees such as customization charges or service costs.
Hence, the best idea is to onboard a TMC that charges a clean fee per-trip like ITILITE. This way, you will get a single amount inclusive of booking, cancellation, support, and other miscellaneous charges before every business trip, and that’s exactly what you pay.
Your travel bill at the end of the month bill won’t be inflated with various secret charges. This clean pricing will help you keep track of T&E spending and reduce overall costs.
To learn more about how much our per-trip pricing model can help you save, talk to our solutions experts today.
3. Round-the-Clock Travel Support
The safety of your employees should be your priority. And especially after the COVID-19 pandemic, travelers are becoming more conscious about their safety. Not just that, other safety challenges such as political unrest, cybercrime, natural calamities, etc can also take impact travelers’ safety.
When business travelers are abroad, it is vital to give them 24*7 support to help them navigate everything easily in a new and foreign place.
4. Business Travel Inventory
The travel management company should offer your employees access to global travel inventory including transportation such as airplanes, trains, rental cars, etc., and accommodation such as hotels, studio apartments, etc.
The employees should be able to check the availability of hotel rooms, flights, to make and confirm reservations in real-time. Apart from this, they should also give offers on group travel bookings, leisure travel, and more.
This will also help you in cost savings for your company.
5. State-of-the-art Technology
Even before you start the RFP process, a go-live time is set in your mind. Make sure the travel management company you choose has integration capabilities and can meet your timelines.
Furthermore, consider how easily changes can be made in their T&E platform to adapt to your company’s unique requirements. Does it have an inbuilt travel policy feature? Is there flexibility for customizing categories and travel policy features? Does it provide real-time data visibility?
Apart from this, the TMC’s travel management platform must have a mobile app a well as browser-based access. This factor is important as the number of employees filing expenses through the convenience of their mobile phones has increased over the years.
This convenience is what will help you get your employees to adopt the T&E solution you choose for your company.
How to Select the Right TMC from RFP Responses
This whole evaluation process of RFP for corporate travel management services can be made easy with the help of weighted scoring for each factor as per your company’s travel and business requirements. For instance, you can add values to different criteria like giving cost a weightage of 20% and traveler safety a weightage of 25%, etc.
itilite is a travel and expense management platform that offers the best travel inventory, along with an integrated travel and expense platform.
To see if we can be a strong contender in your RFP process, reach out to our product expert for a free demo today.
