Top Business Travel Trends for a Modern World

Even the most modern companies can tend to fall behind when it comes to their travel programs for employees. They seem to be behind the trends regarding policies, strategies, and technology and that results in a reduced ROI over what could be achieved through corporate travel programs.

Just as with anything else in business, travel policies need to be constantly changing and evolving so they can keep up with employees and the world.

If you’re like most companies you may not even review your travel policy ever, and if you do it’s probably a maximum of once every five years or so. When your policy is outdated and inefficient, it impacts your employees’ ability to make the most of their business travel, and it also leaves your company open to potential fraud and abuses. At the same time, if you hardly even have a formalized policy then employees may have no idea what’s expected of them when they travel.

These are all things that need to be considered, and the following are some of the things you can do to modernize your corporate travel policy, based on trends and what’s happening in the world right now.

Use the Right Technology

One of the most important things you can do is to align your expense management policy and solutions with modern, efficient technology. Your expense policy needs to address innovations in travel and travel technology, and this is key.

Look for an expense management solution that makes this seamless and will allow your employees to access everything they need from a mobile device. Move toward a paper-free expense management policy as much as possible, and try to find a software platform that helps your employees focus less on approvals and submitting documentation and more on the work they’re traveling to do.

When you’re using the right expense management software, so many of the necessary components of modernization are built in for you. For example, you don’t have to worry about slow approvals or the errors that come from manual invoice processing. You can also cut down on the potential for fraud because of built-in parameters and centralized visibility.

Reconsider Chain Hotels

For decades business travelers were expected to go to chain hotels, and there was a reason for this. These hotels were well-equipped for business travelers, and most offered loyalty programs, but now, these are often not the most cost-effective options, yet travel managers aren’t necessarily looking as closely at potential cost savings as they could be.

With the sharing economy, there are options on Airbnb that can not only save significant amounts of money but can also make younger business travelers happier because they’ll feel like they’re getting more of authentic experience while in their destination.

It’s really important for travel managers to look outside their comfort zone when it comes to accommodations and other aspects of business travel.

Along with rethinking accommodations, there are other areas of the sharing economy that corporations and travel managers should consider an ingrained component of how business is done, such as Uber.

Rethink Entertainment Budgets

Today’s modern business traveler wants the bleisure experience, which is a quirky nickname for a trip combining business and leisure. Travel managers and company leaders should look at this not as a burden, but as an opportunity.

If you can reframe business travel from a burden to a perk, you’re doing your business a lot of favors. For example, if you offer a bit of an entertainment budget for employees while they’re traveling to enjoy their leisure time, this is actually a great recruiting tool. You may be spending a bit more during the travel time, but also improving your ROI.

Improve Transparency

Finally, transparency is a place where a lot of companies need to focus their attention, not just regarding travel policies. What happens with a lot of businesses is that they set an employee travel and expense policy, and they simply tell employees “this is what it is, now do it.”

Today’s employees don’t respond well to that, and they’re likely to feel frustrated or confused. As companies work on modernizing their travel policies, they should also think about showing employees why they are what they are. They should let them know why certain things aren’t available, and it will help promote more satisfied and compliant employees.