Do you REALLY have to reduce
travel in order to reduce costs?
 Travel
is often vital in remaining competitive, growing
your business, and to ensure that your existing clients
are well cared for. Each of these is especially critical
in this economy.
Contrary to what you may hear in the media, businesses
today have many opportunities when it comes to your
travel program. For instance, airfares are lower than
they have been in a long time and deeply discounted
airfares are often available without a long advance
purchase time frame.
Reducing travel is not necessarily the best
response, but traveling smarter is always a good
idea. The climate is ripe for strategic
changes in your managed travel program allowing you
to reduce costs without sacrificing service, safety,
or comfort.
- Advance Purchase – decrease
use of tickets purchased less than 7 days in advance
Online Booking – increase use of online
booking
- Unused Tickets – decrease
the number of unused ticket credits that expire
- Preferred Vendors – increase
use of air, car, and hotel preferred vendors
- Car Size – reduce car size
exceptions
- Extraneous Fees and Charges – establish
and enforce clear policies on allowed charges (i.e.
GPS rental, baggage fees, premium seating, refueling,
in-room movies, room service, laundry, etc.)
- Booking Channels – enforce
use of approved booking channels to ensure application
of negotiated discounts
- Global consolidation of travel program – combine
travel volume, management data, and maintain consistent
policy guidelines
These are just a few of the ways your organization
can achieve incremental savings. Often a change of
only 20-25% in several categories will yield measurable
results that will add to your bottom line.
Travel-On’s
travel management team will work with you to address
your financial and operational goals, and develop
strategies unique to your organization. By acting
now, you can put into place travel management processes
that not only will work during this recession, but
will place your travel program in an ideal position
long after the recession is over.
We have many strategies and services including periodic
and ongoing assessments of the five areas of savings:
booking channel, amount of travel and travel alternatives,
vendor selection/review or re-negotiation, enhancing
your travel policy, enforcement/compliance, and global
consolidation. Whether it’s our state-of-the-art
online booking platform, internal and external benchmarking
program, automated policy monitoring and compliance
software, or actionable management data, we have
the tools and services to advise and assist you in
capturing all savings opportunities.
To discuss your unique business challenges
or specific goals, please contact your Travel-On
account manager. We are eager to make sure that you
succeed and remain flexible to help you achieve your
program goals.
|
