With sky-high airfares and increasing global inflation, achieving cost-effective corporate traveling plans is a challenging task in and of itself. Managers around the globe spend a whopping $111.7 Billion on business trips every year.
But, with smart strategies in place, companies can cut costs. They can make both their employees and stakeholders satisfied this way.
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What is Corporate Travel?
Corporate traveling is when a business sends its employer to a different region, city, or country. The organization sponsors their employers’ accommodation and travel costs. Corporate travel can be about meeting with other branch employees or team members. It can also be about meeting people involved in the company’s business processes.
7 Ways to Save Money While Corporate Traveling
Travel management is a crucial aspect when you are sending your employees on a business trip. As an employer, you have to help your employees with the best of traveling resources which can be expensive sometimes.
We have collected these money-savvy tips for you. With these tips, you can cut corners while maintaining the quality experience of the corporate trip.
1. Tweak Your Corporate Travel Policies
Before sending your employees on a business trip, take a good look at your corporate travel policy. Consider the expenditure for booking flights, on-site spending, meals, and luggage handling while formulating the corporate travel policy.
Also, your corporate travel policy should be easy to understand and clear. It should include the important aspects of what the company will cover for the employee. As a manager, it’s important to know where your money is going.
Ask your employees to keep a check on their expenditures. Watching their spending power will promote a sense of responsibility. When you have sorted out the basics, you can adopt a more robust strategy. This strategy will cover every aspect of business travel expenditure.
2. Book Flights During Off-Season
Planning corporate travel during off-peak seasons saves you a lot of money. During the offseason, airlines offer many seat discounts and managers can get accommodation at cheaper rates.
During the low season, you may have to deal with rainy weather and cooler temperatures. But it’s a rare instance if you plan everything beforehand. Looking at the weather forecasts should be your first step before you book the flights.
To further reduce booking costs, you can look into corporate apartments, rent a room for stay, or book a 3-star hotel with standard rooms while covering only the internet and meal expenses.
3. Save Money on Corporate Hotel Stays
Hotels and corporate housing accounts for one of the biggest portions of corporate travel expenses.
The longer you stay at the hotel, the more add-up on the costs. So, if your trip is for more than a couple days, you can go for a corporate rental. These affordable corporate suites are a great way to save money on adding costs. This is a good move for a clever manager or business owner.
For instance, if your stay is around a month or more and you’re traveling to Chicago, you’ll need corporate apartments in Chicago for rent. The furnished apartments in Chicago aren’t only cost-effective but they are also facilitated with required amenities for corporate teams.
If the trip is shorter, then it is smart to incorporate policies for lodgings, such as a budget cap or a scoring system. In this manner, your employees can identify deals or work within the budget to maximize the hotel’s value.
It’s intriguing that some hotels offer discounts on the same room through specials on different websites. Additionally, some websites compare hotels that might assist you in resolving the hotel selection issue.
4. Avoid Extra Fees
Since almost everything on airlines is extra, doing your research in advance is essential. Baggage fees are one of the expenses that come as a surprise to many.
This can include baggage costs (usually charged by low-cost airlines) and fees for overage in weight. Check the airline’s baggage policies before your upcoming trip. It will help you avoid extra or miscellaneous costs.
Parking at airports is pricey and can mount up when combined with other costs. The journey can be more affordable by forgoing airport parking, albeit it can be less convenient. Before leaving, compare prices at local airport parking lots.
5. Cut Costs on Food and Transport
Cutting expenditure on food and transportation is an effective strategy for cheaper corporate travel. Managers may allot a limited budget to each employee so each individual can decide where to eat and how much they should spend on each meal.
To cut transportation costs, figure out whether employees using their own conveyance is more affordable than taking a bus or train. If there’s no other practical solution then you should be using buses.
6. Include Short Tours Within the Trip
Most of your employees can be new to the 30-day business trip idea. There are chances they’ll get bored or frustrated when only dealing with work. And since you want the team to be productive, you’ll need to plan something to ensure their effectiveness on the stay.
Give them some time to visit the famous places in the locality or finance their tours within the city. This will help them fill with enthusiasm and excitement about exploring something new every day.
If you need examples, a tour of the traditional village (hardly costs anything) or the museum will be good compensation.
7. Introduce Rewards for Wise Expenditure
A reward strategy works wonders which is why you should think of introducing one. This strategy can be for the team members who spend in a wiser manner. These rewards can include a dinner at a fancy restaurant at the hotel or a funded extension of the trip.
If you announce the rewards at the start of the trip, the employees will remember them and act by it in most cases. The main goal behind all of it is to make your team members feel the importance of accountability.
Also read: BEST WAYS TO SAVE MONEY WHILE TRAVELLING
Conclusion
Managers need to analyze the company’s budget to plan a cost-effective corporate traveling policy. Once you have formulated a policy, managers need to take actionable steps. These steps will reduce the costs like booking standard rooms and saving money on food and transportation.