In today’s fast-paced business world, travel has become critical for driving growth and success. However, as the volume of business travel continues to rise, traditional methods of travel management are no longer sufficient. The need to operate efficiently, make last-minute changes, and streamline processes has become paramount.
With advanced travel management tools, managers can handle all aspects of their travel program and adapt to the changing dynamics. Let’s check out the major reasons why it’s important for a business travel manager to adopt travel technology.
Increased Efficiency in Travel Planning and Booking
1. Self-Booking By Employees
Travel technology reduces the workload of a business travel manager by allowing employees to book their travel arrangements themselves. This could be via a corporate booking tool. The tool integrates with the company’s travel policies so the employee can easily book the options within company guidelines.
Moreover, employees can modify or cancel their bookings on the go without having to reach out to the business travel manager every time.
2. Automation of Travel Processes
Travel technology solutions such as travel management software (TMS) automate repetitive tasks. This eliminates the need for manual data entry and reduces the chances of errors.
In addition, automated workflows enable booking requests to be sent directly to the designated approver. The approver can quickly approve or deny it in just a few clicks. This reduces the effort managers and employees require, resulting in optimum efficiency.
3. Better Data Management
With the help of a SaaS-based travel management platform, a business travel manager can consolidate travel data from a centralized location. Then, they can access the data from anywhere and update or change it easily. This simplifies the process of overseeing and coordinating travel bookings.
Centralized online data management also eliminates the need for keeping physical copies of travel documents such as receipts and expense reports. Moreover, the data is better secured with the help of measures such as data encryption.
Enhanced Cost Management and Savings
1. Forecasting Best Prices
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a technology a business travel manager can leverage to find the best deals and discounts. AI analyzes past data and travel trends to predict the seasons in which the cost of flights and hotels would be the lowest.
It also suggests alternative flight routes with lower pricing. By learning about future pricing, you can make more informed decisions in planning business trips and save money.
2. Tracking Employee Spending
One way to ensure the financial health of the company is to ensure that your employees aren’t overspending while they are on a business trip. A travel and expense management software solution is beneficial in getting in-depth insights into when and how your travelers are spending money.
Through the analytics dashboard in the software, you can identify spending trends and suspicious expense activity. Moreover, you can also schedule automated reports on a regular basis. This can help you in managing your travel costs.
3. Enforcing Travel Policies and Preventing Fraud
A business travel manager can enforce travel policies using travel and expense management software. The software automatically checks whether the claimed travel expense complies with the company’s expense policy.
Further, it detects and flags any non-compliant expenses and notifies the employee. This serves as a proactive control mechanism, preventing employees from submitting out-of-policy expenses.
Additionally, the T&E software includes algorithms that can detect and flag duplicate, inflated, or fictitious expenses. This helps identify fraud, where employees may try to claim more than they spent on business purchases.
4. Virtual Travel Consultancy
Another advantage of using technology in travel management is AI-based Virtual Travel Consultant. A VTC helps you in getting step-by-step guidance on how you can optimize your travel spending. It compares your travel expenses against the industry benchmark and lets you know whether you overspend.
Moreover, the Virtual Travel Consultant generates suggestions tailored to each company’s needs and policies. This ensures that the recommendations provided are relevant and effective in achieving the best possible results.
Improved traveler experience
1. Personalization of Business Trip
Business travel managers can use travel technology to offer a seamless experience to their employees. Employees prefer personalized travel so they can work with their maximum efficiency and avoid any stress. These preferences may include seat selection, airline choice, access to airport lounges, and more.
A corporate TMS solution analyzes the past travel search of the employee along with their preferences to suggest personalized travel packages. This approach also increases policy compliance as employees get to choose from options that match their interests.
2. Better Customer Support
AI-based chatbots are another technology that a business travel manager can benefit from. They are designed to assist travelers on the go, at any time of the day. The chatbots provide consistent and accurate responses to traveler inquiries. This reduces the need for travelers to wait for support agents and results in faster resolution of issues. As a result, it enhances the travel experience and satisfaction of employees.
Further, chatbots are convenient for companies as they can handle a significant volume of inquiries without the need for additional human resources.
3. Access to Travel Information on-the-go
With the help of travel technology, managers can provide employees with alerts regarding updates on their trips.
For instance, if a flight is delayed, travelers can receive an instant notification with the updated information, enabling them to rebook a new flight, contact customer support, or adjust their hotel bookings as needed. This ensures minimal disruption in the travel plan, and the employee doesn’t have to face many inconveniences.
Enhanced Risk Management
1. Live-Track Travelers
Ensuring the safety of employees is crucial for a business travel manager. Many travel management platforms provide GPS tracking features that allow managers to monitor the real-time location of their employees. GPS tracking can be done through travelers’ smartphones, wearable devices, or dedicated tracking devices, depending on the technology used.
2. Pre-assess Risks
To prevent employees from going to high-risk locations, it is important for a business travel manager to assess the safety of that region. To do this, managers can use AI technology that analyzes weather patterns, past disruptions, and other factors to predict unsafe conditions. This helps travel managers assess travel risks and take preventive measures to avoid losses.
Stay Ahead of the Curve as a Business Travel Manager
Adopting travel technology is critical to efficiently managing all aspects of business travel. For this purpose, you can use corporate travel management with robust expense management software.Â
ITILITE is an advanced T&E software that allows travel managers to make the most of out business travel through real-time visibility into travel bookings and expenses, enabling them to make informed decisions. With ITILITE, employees can make bookings themselves and get access to 24/7 AI travel support.Â
To know more about the benefits, get a demo now.
