travel tech insights

Like every other sector of the travel industry, steady growth in business travel doesn’t necessarily translate into increased sales for every travel management company (TMC). The travel sector is challenging because the business model is complex and competition is fierce.

Part 1 of this series explored why controlling the cost of employee travel is difficult due to issues that cannot be eliminated and are not easily handled. Part 1 also discussed why these difficulties often lead organizations to use travel management companies (TMC) for their business travel -  with their responsibilities ranging from administering corporate travel policies to booking employee business trips.

Business managers often find the challenges of controlling business travel costs to stay top of mind for two reasons: 1) travel costs often appear deceptively easy to manage and control – only to turn out to be quite the opposite; 2) travel is expensive, meaning these costs can quickly become significant if not controlled.  Travel costs appear easy to control because the amounts almost always require a formal approval mechanism. However, travel approval procedures in most companies tend to stumble in two ways.

There are several audiences for this question and at least as many possible answers. The audience which likely first comes to mind is the business person - finding his seat on an early Monday morning, then monitoring connection times as he makes his way home on Friday.  Invisiblein that mental picture is a second audience: the traveler’s corporate travel policy. Then there is a third one – the corporate managers responsible for the execution and outcomes of that policy.  It’s impossible for any travel agency to arrive at a good answer to the question unless it thinks in terms of managing travel rather than simply arranging travel.