Creating effective business travel planning needs years of experience in handling business travel details with strong expertise on the subject and offering ready solutions to any business trip issues. A comprehensive business travel planning undergoes multiple steps to make it a successful journey yielding traveller delights. Often it becomes a point of concern for companies as to how to approach a business travel plan. Well, no worry further!
With decades of intense experience and strong knowledge on business travel planning with specialization in end-to-end travel arrangements and better travel support across international borders, our travel experts at Lufthansa City Center Travels & Rentals have prepared a complete guide that approaches business travel planning in the following step by step manner.
Compliance to Corporate Travel Policy
The foremost factor that a company needs to focus on, is corporate travel policy. A clear and strong corporate travel policy often eases the process of a business travel program. It takes care of the safety of travellers and defines a clear picture on budget spend, approval system, reimbursement procedures with special focus on flight tickets, class – business or economy, hotel accommodations and ground transport. The more the clarity it offers, the better is the business travel program. Read more on our article that clearly states on how to prepare an effective corporate travel policy.
Prepare a Consolidated Budget
Budget is one of the prime factors of any travel. Especially in business travel, it mostly depends on the organization to set a budget depending on the nature of travel and the designation that the traveler holds in the company. Apart from that, the other deciding factors of preparing a budget are -
· Destination of travel
· Number of days of travel
· Hotels and accommodations
· Cost of flight tickets
· Nature of ground transport
· Miscellaneous expenses
Make Travel Booking
The impact of travel booking on travel planning is huge. Flawless travel booking makes business travel planning easy and stress free. After the destination is finalized, it is wise to look for special deals in flight booking and hotel booking process as it reduces good amount of travel expenses. Seat preferences in flights, selecting favourite hotels and opting for specific ground transports like selecting particular cars are also integral part of travel booking process. This process also takes care of last-minute changes in travel plan like finding out alternative options in case of flight cancellations and delays.
Supervise Travel Arrangements
Monitoring fine details of the itinerary is another essential factor of business travel planning. Depending on the traveller’s demand, both in cases of source and destination points of travel, you might need to arrange vehicles for pickup and drops. In case of VIP travellers, you need to also look at preferred cars along with lounge services at airports, meals and other facilities that the travellers may opt for.
However, in case of MiCE events, the venue is the most important factor, as it involves strict monitoring on number of rooms allotted, booking of seminar or conference space, seating arrangements, stage for the key persons, food arrangements, and much more. In such cases it is always better to take assistance of an experienced travel management company who can take care of all the factors and arrange the event seamlessly.
Offering solid travel support
A business travel planning is never complete without top travel support. From pre-trip queries to on-trip solutions, a business traveller will need constant support at all points of travel. Following information are something that can never be avoided while making a business travel planning. They are -
· weather changes
· political unrest
· pandemic outbreak
· unfavourable situation at destination
· cancellation of flights
· issues with hotels / room
· misplacements of travel documents and
· medical assistance
That is where a 24/7 emergency travel support becomes very important. With a travel management company, travel experts will be available to assist for any unfavourable situation you experience.
Maintaining transparency
A traveller should be made fully aware about the situations like cancellation of flights or possibilities of last-minute changes because that is where cancellation, refund and reimbursement policies come into picture. Most of all, clear communication of corporate policies to the business traveller enhances better understanding of guidelines and constraints and reduces misunderstandings and non-compliance. Also, transparency fosters accountability, as travellers will be aware of their expenses and will try to confine them within allotted budget. All of that combined together eventually helps in making a better business travel plan.
Post travel analysis
A travel plan can be made better if you have a comprehensive data of past records in hand. With that, you will be able to understand the travel patterns more. One can have a detailed understanding of number of times flights booked, majority of routes taken, destinations visited, number of rooms booked, car rentals taken for ground transport, other amenities availed and total expenses incurred over a period of time. With all detailed insights you can draw a conclusion of the past situation and control the future expenses incurred on specific heads.
Conclusion
As discussed so far, a comprehensive business travel planning rests on the pillars of clear corporate travel policy, preparation of consolidated budget, effective travel booking, making travel arrangements, 24/7 travel support, clear communication to travellers and detailed travel analytics. All these factors facilitate a company, no matter large or small, to take better decisions on travel. A better business travel plan enhances safety and creates complete awareness of the parameters, like budget, limitations, leading to traveller satisfaction and better output of business travel objectives.
We have already mentioned above, that, it would be better to take assistance of an experienced travel management company in order to create strong business travel planning. With expertise on various departments like travel account management, arrangements of travel documentation, VIP travel services, MIS reporting and 24/7 travel support, Lufthansa City Center Travels & Rentals, as one of the leading travel management companies in India, will effortlessly make a business travel plan that will be suitable for your business travellers.
Connect with us for more details!
Comments