5 BEST PRACTICES

To Pump Up Travel Compliance

BY PARTNERSHIP TRAVEL CONSULTING

301 N. HARRISON ST, STE 214, PRINCETON, NJ 08540

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But it’s a tall order for many organizations. After all, consider some of today’s challenges:

› Easy access to non-sanctioned online booking tools

› The growing popularity of ridesharing and alternative lodging

› Higher business travel risk

› Hundreds of travel apps that claim to find the lowest airfare and hotel rates

Here are 5 best practices for maximizing your corporate travel policy:

1 Talk to your travelers — but listen, too. Use your company intranet, newsletters,town hall meetings, targeted email blasts, and other methods to communicate your policy to travelers. What information is important to include? Who to book travel through (a designated TMC or online booking tool), new preferred suppliers, and changes in corporate reimbursement rules. It’s important to listen to your travelers, too, advises Mary Tardi, Senior Vice President of Partnership Travel Consulting. “You need to be able to recognize that your travelers might see a lower hotel rate or airfare outside your designated booking resource. After all, there are a lot of booking options out there now. Encourage travelers to bring that information to your TMC — so they, in turn, can explain to travelers why they need to book preferred suppliers. But if that alternative makes sense, your agent can book it. This way, you still capture that booking information.”

2 Reward your travel management company for driving compliance. Accordingto Trends in Travel Policy Compliance and Adherence, a 2015 white paper produced by The BTN Group and BMO Financial Group, 30% of more than 500 travel management professionals surveyed1 identified booking through the designated channel as their top compliance concern. Provide an extra incentive to your agency to help promote compliance to your policy, says Partnership Travel Consulting Senior Vice President Don Murphy. Consider financial rewards. “You need to have a TMC that partners with you, that’s on the same page as you. Make an incentive part of your Service Level Agreement (SLA). Figure out how much your best practices are going to save you — and then offer them a piece of that savings if you achieve and exceed your goals.” What’s a good incentive look like? Murphy advises to share graduated percentages of savings achieved — in airfares or hotel rates — through higher compliance rates, for example 5% for a base level of savings and 10% for a higher level.

Your corporate travel policy is your travel management company’s bible

and the “big gun” in your cost-control arsenal. So, it’s only fitting that you

should build and maintain one that promotes compliance, saves you

money and keeps your travelers safe and informed.

1 Respondents were polled from May to June 20152 Based on 9 million receipts and expenses during the fourth quarter and 30 million receipts for the full year.

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3 To keep your travelers safe, rely on the experts. It’s a scary world out there. So, it’s important to keep abreast of up-to-the-minute government warnings on travel and then get notifications to travelers efficiently. How to do that? Tardi advises: “Ask yourself, ‘What is my ability to self manage this?’” If you cannot, “utilize a service that works with your TMC that automatically feeds State Department and third-party warnings to at-risk travelers — based on their bookings.”

4 Make mitigating risk your top priority when considering ridesharing and alternative lodging. There’s no doubt about it — services like Uber and Airbnb are growing popular with business travelers. Look at Uber. Fourth-quarter 2015 data2 from

travel and expense management software provider Certify, shows that, for the first time, Uber has taken over car rentals’ market share, advancing to 41% of rides — from 34% in the previous quarter. Meanwhile, the share of car rental receipts fell to 39%, down from 44% in the third quarter. But as a travel manager, your top priority should be to make sure these services are safe and that they comply with

your company’s duty of care policy and insurance requirements. “Uber is not going away,” says Murphy. “So if you’re going to contract with them, you need to make

sure they have adequate levels of insurance required by your company. Make sure they do background checks on drivers. And get all of the same kind of information on maintenance and quality of vehicles that you get from rental agencies.” Murphy adds: “If you want to do business with an alternative lodging company, you need to sit down with them and show them your requirements — such as sprinkler systems, fire alarms. If they can’t meet those requirements, then don’t put your people in them.”

5 Control all your business travel costs. Set policy around the purchase of other T&E costs — beyond air, hotel and car rental. There’s mobile phone costs, for one. Consider negotiating with your mobile phone service provider for such things as unlimited data, free phones, and international service. Then — tie reimbursement of phone charges to use of this dedicated company cell. Another area you can focus on is hotel fees. It’s estimated that U.S. hotels collected a record $2.47 billion in fees and surcharges in 2015, five percent higher than 2014’s total, which also broke historical records.3 What can you negotiate? Try for hotel gym, parking, Wi-Fi, and baggage storage fees. Negotiating a deal on fees makes it even more imperative that your travelers book your preferred properties.

3 Source: New York University hospitality clinical professor Bjorn Hanson.

“Your travel policy is the bedrock of your cost-control and duty of care efforts,” says Andrew Menkes, Founder and CEO of Partnership Travel Consulting. “It will serve you well if it is clearly defined, continually updated and widely communicated to travelers and your TMC. Make sure it’s clear that complying with policy will benefit both travelers and the overall organization. Every employee that receives a corporate card or fills out a travel profile should be required to acknowledge receipt and understanding of the travel policy.”

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ABOUT PARTNERSHIP TRAVEL CONSULTING

By 2017, U.S. companies will spend more than $310 billion on

business travel. More than ever, you need help controlling and

reducing your business and meetings travel costs.

Partnership Travel Consulting (PTC), a travel management consulting group established in 2001, employs unrivaled expertise and best-in-class resources to help you:

› Develop and review the effectiveness of corporate travel policies

› Source and negotiate the best prices for air, hotel, car rental and limousine services

› Assess and select travel agencies

› Select, implement and measure the effectiveness of Online Booking Tools (OBTs)

› Implement central management — and improved cost control — of corporate meetings

› Assess and select risk management software to help ensure the safety of travelers

› Select a corporate credit card system

› Implement a Corporate Travel Department (CTD) to receive all commissions directly

from travel suppliers and outsource services to travel agencies

› Audit the travel agency financial stream accurately

Let our team of consultants — renowned experts from all sectors of the business travel industry — design these and other custom solutions for you.

Contact us today at whitepapers@Partnershiptc.com or call +1 609-443-8460.

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