Business Travel Tips

Corporate travel managers are gathering in Boston for the annual meeting of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA). It’s a meeting involving managers who are responsible for all business travel within their respective companies.

The main goal for corporate travel managers these days is to ensure traveler compliance with corporate travel policies.
 USATODAY.com says it involves also traveler’s security issues.

If travelers use preferred travel suppliers and stay within policy guidelines they can be easily contacted in an emergency. When employees book outside the corporate policy guidelines they may be more difficult to locate during a crisis situation.

The newspaper lists a few tools corporations make use of to facilitate travel policy compliance.

- Use of a self-service online booking tool
It guides travelers to the suppliers endorsed by the company’s travel policy (Non-compliance may take the form of selecting an airline or hotel that is not on the preferred provider list or perhaps that traveler didn’t use the corporate online booking tool to purchase their travel).

- Compliance Champions
They monitor and improve travel policy compliance, works with non-compliant employees to determine the reasons for non-compliance

- Travel Liaisons
They are not directly enforcing travel policy compliance, their role is to train people to use the online booking tool and give travelers a better understanding of the travel policy to help them understand why they see the results they see when using the self service booking tool.