International travel nearly tripled between January and July 2022 (+172%) compared to the same period in 2021, according to the recent United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) Index, indicating that travel has nearly reached its pre-pandemic levels.
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The primary objective of an employee incentives program is to increase engagement and productivity while promoting the company’s goals. Incentives can positively impact employee behavior and business performance.
The post-pandemic economic recovery has resulted in a surge in corporate travel transactions. This surge is being driven by businesses of varying types and sizes. Employees engage in domestic and business travel to generate more leads and convert leads into customers. But they increase carbon emissions and leave carbon footprints consistently while traveling to various destinations for work. Hence, while updating their travel policies after the pandemic, many organizations these days focus on reducing the environmental impact of employee travel. They have been promoting sustainable business travel by switching from conventional travel to green travel. Likewise, companies and startups these days train, encourage, and incentivize employees to choose green travel options. Every organization can leverage a slew of benefits by adopting green travel.
7 Reasons Why Businesses Should Switch to Green Travel1. Protect Natural and Cultural EnvironmentsBusiness travelers consist of 12% of airline passengers. But they account for 75% of airline profits and are responsible for 30% of carbon emissions. The carbon emissions impact natural and cultural environments by causing climate change and warming the planet. A business can reduce carbon emissions and save the environment only by switching from conventional travel to green or sustainable travel. A company can reduce the carbon footprint per business trip significantly by making several changes to its existing travel policy. Its sustainable business travel policy must encourage employees to choose airlines that have been taking measures to become carbon neutral. Likewise, work travelers should consider eco-friendly hotels while making business travel arrangements. At the same time, a company can make business travel sustainable by encouraging employees to follow simple things like using electric vehicles, opting for e-tickets, carrying reusable plastic bottles, and generating minimal waste. 2. Make a Brand Stand OutAccording to an independent study commissioned by SmartEnergy, “4 out of 5 people describe themselves as likely to choose a brand with a positive approach to environmental sustainability.” Similarly, the number of consumers preferring sustainable products and packaging is increasing steadily. A company or startup can make itself stand out from competitors by becoming a sustainability brand. While planning brand-building campaigns, marketers can highlight how the company has been protecting nature and culture by adopting green travel. Hence, sustainable business travel can be used as a new-age marketing strategy to acquire customers and drive sales. 3. Meet Corporate Social ResponsibilitiesThe social responsibilities of a company can be divided into multiple categories – economic, philanthropic, environmental, and ethical. The environmental social responsibilities of a company emphasize making it environment-friendly. A company can meet its environmental responsibilities only by minimizing negative environmental impact and maximizing renewable energy adoption. A company or startup can meet environmental responsibilities by switching to sustainable business travel. The change will make it contribute to keeping the environment clean, reducing carbon footprint, and preventing general waste. In addition to protecting the environment, green travel helps organizations attract and retain talents who passionately believe in working in a sustainable company. 4. Convert Work Travelers into Eco-WarriorsMany websites highlight the fights, contributions, and achievements of many eco-warriors or climate warriors. Likewise, the United Nations picks young eco-warriors from various countries for its climate change campaign – We The Change. The packed work schedules of working professionals make it difficult for them to become eco-warriors. But a company can make employees traveling for work feel like eco-warriors by switching from conventional business travel to sustainable business travel. A business will meet the expectations of employees by providing them with options to book green travel business travel products and services. At the same time, the sustainability programs will make them feel like eco-warriors by adopting many changes. 5. Reduce Travel Stress and FatigueThe aviation industry contributes hugely to global carbon dioxide emissions. But connecting flights use even more carbon dioxide than direct flights. Businesses can easily reduce the carbon footprint per work trip by allowing employees to book direct flights instead of connecting flights. In addition to reducing carbon footprint, direct flights help employees reduce air travel time significantly. The decrease in air travel time keeps employees stress-free and boosts their productivity during business trips. 6. Adopt a Hottest Business Travel TrendThe business travel trends change at regular intervals. But green travel is one of the corporate travel trends that do not change with time. 72% of travelers want to stay in eco-friendly or green accommodations at least once. Likewise, 78% of millennials prefer sustainable travel options while planning and booking trips. Hence, every company can meet the expectations of employees traveling for work by adopting green travel. Its updated travel policy must boost work travel experiences by allowing employees to choose from conventional and sustainable travel options. 7. Control Business Travel CostsMany decision-makers still believe that sustainable travel is more expensive than conventional travel. But every business can control business travel expenses by adopting green travel. For instance, it can reduce carbon dioxide emissions by encouraging employees to opt for a budget airline that load additional passengers in the same amount of space. Similarly, employees can engage in sustainable travel by preferring public transportation to car rentals and reducing the weight of their luggage. However, every organization must prepare employees to adopt green travel by providing training and giving incentives. ConclusionThe number of companies and startups adopting green travel has been increasing steadily. But no business can keep employee travel sustainable without monitoring and evaluating the carbon footprint generated by every business trip. While making a sustainable business travel program, decision-makers should not focus on reducing the number of business trips or replacing face-to-face meetings with video conferences. Instead, they should focus on reducing the carbon footprint per business trip consistently. Leading companies implement the best travel management software to measure and monitor carbon footprints using data analytics. Decision-makers can use the software to track carbon footprints simply by generating reports based on real-time employee travel data. Also, they can customize the software to recommend green travel products and services to employees when they make business travel arrangements. The customizable travel management software makes it easier for companies to adopt green travel by updating travel policies regularly. The end of the COVID-19 pandemic will lead to a surge in domestic and business trips. Consequently, you need to make changes to your organization’s corporate travel management policies. Your post-pandemic travel policy must focus on improving the work travel experience and ensuring corporate traveler safety at a time. At the same time, the updated travel policy must implement strategies to control business travel expenses and prevent travel expense fraud. You can easily manage the surge in business trips by automating corporate travel management and implementing travel and expense software. The travel and expense software will make it easier for your company or startup to improve business travel management, ensure corporate traveler safety, and control business travel expenses. Also, it will help you make informed decisions using new-generation technologies. Hence, the right travel management software will help your organization streamline corporate travel management in several ways. 11 Ways Travel and Expense Software Streamlines Corporate Travel Management1. Access Extended Travel InventoryWork travelers these days expect employers to provide more choices or options. They love to choose from multiple business travel products like flights, accommodations, and car rentals. The travel and expense software will enable your employees to access an extended travel inventory. Hence, every business traveler can book their choice of business travel products and services. 2. Get Discounted and Negotiated Rates Leading travel and expense software providers these days build business relationships with major travel vendors and suppliers. Hence, your employees can book key business travel products and services at discounted or negotiated rates. At the same time, the software will detect hidden fares charged by airlines and hotel chains using algorithms. The feature helps your business reduce business travel expenses significantly. 3. Facilitate Managed Travel Booking Most travel and expense software applications these days feature self-booking tools. Employees can leverage these tools to book business travel products on their own according to preset travel policies and budgets. Many travel management software solutions support managed travel booking. This feature makes it easier for your employees to get real-time assistance while comparing and booking business travel products and services. 4. Meet Duty of Care Obligations In the post-pandemic age, your business must keep business travelers safe and comfortable by meeting the duty of care obligations. But there are chances that your company or startup may lack the resources required to help employees manage emerging corporate travel challenges across destinations. The travel and expense software mitigates business travel risks by delivering real-time travel rules and restrictions to work travelers before and during the trip. At the same time, leading travel management software providers keep business travelers safe and secure across destinations by partnering with international health and security service providers. 5. Automate Travel Approvals While customizing or configuring the travel and expense software, you can integrate complex policy checks and implement multi-level approval flows. The software will use the policy checks, and approval flows as key parameters while approving business trips and travel expenses. It will send smart notifications to your finance team or HR team whenever it detects travel policy violations or travel expense fraud. Hence, you can configure the software to automate rule-based trip approvals accurately. 6. Simplify Travel Expense Filing Employees want to generate and file expense reports after business trips without putting in extra time and effort. The travel and expense software comes with built-in tools to scan expense reports. Also, it generates expense reports automatically by capturing information from the scanned receipts. Hence, the software will help employees to file expense reports quickly and effortlessly. 7. Speed up Travel Expense Reimbursements In addition to helping employees to file expense reports quickly, the travel and expense management software will help your finance team to speed up reimbursements. The automated expense approval will reduce the time required to reimburse travel expenses significantly. At the same time, your finance team can transfer funds to the employee’s bank account directly using the software. 8. Automate Expense Audits Your corporate travel policy must make travel expense auditing an ongoing process. The travel audits will help you check if the expenses incurred by business travelers are necessary and comply with your organization’s policies. The travel and expense software captures approvals and comments while processing expense reports. Hence, you can open the software to evaluate and analyze the business travel expenses incurred by employees frequently and effortlessly. 9. Prevent Travel Expense Fraud Travel expense fraud is cited as the major cause of revenue leakages. Your revised corporate travel policy must implement features to detect and prevent expense frauds committed by work travelers proactively. The new-age travel management software prevents expense fraud using intelligence technologies. They detect travel expense frauds automatically based on several factors, including policy violations and duplicate receipts. Also, they send smart notifications to your finance team each time a travel fraud is detected. 10. Incentivize Employees to Save Based on your corporate travel policy, the travel and expense software offers business travel incentives to choose low-cost alternatives. The software will use a trip cost predictor to make employees estimate business travel expenses. Also, it will incentivize them to opt for low-cost business travel products and earn a part of the saving as rewards. 11. Get Actionable Travel Insights The dashboard provided by the travel and expense management software will help you get a 3600 view of employee business travel data. At the same time, the best software solutions have a virtual travel consultant that provides you with actionable travel insights by analyzing large volumes of employee travel data using analytics. You can leverage the actionable insights to make your travel policies more effective in improving travel experiences and controlling travel costs. Conclusion
Your organization can save the time and resources required to streamline corporate travel management through automation. But you must focus on a slew of factors to implement travel management software that meets your company’s short-term and long-term business travel management needs. In addition to being easy to implement, access, and customize, the travel and expense software should help your business improve business travel experiences and meet the duty of care requirements. Also, the software comes with built-in features to help you control business travel expenses. At the same time, you need to ensure that the software remains relevant in the long run by leveraging cutting-edge technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics. Hence, your organization can streamline corporate travel management only by implementing the right travel management software. Small businesses can benefit from the use of digital technologies to compete with large businesses. But if you want your business to grow, you will have to manage various types of expenses efficiently. You must implement expense management policies to track business expenses, speed up expense reimbursements, and improve spend visibility. Small businesses and startups these days can better control their expenses by implementing cloud-based expense management software. They slash infrastructural costs by accessing the expense management solution using a Software as a Service (SaaS) distribution model. Source: https://itilite.wordpress.com/2022/09/16/best-expense-management-software-for-small-business/
After the COVID-19 pandemic, companies and startups have been increasing business travel costs with the aim of generating incremental revenue. One way they have been meeting that goal is by updating corporate travel policies, which in turn has resulted in a greater focus on meeting and managing varying business travel needs. Some businesses meet their work travel requirements by partnering with a travel management company, while others opt for an online travel agency. Both travel management companies and online travel agencies help clients simplify and accelerate business travel booking.
After the COVID-19 pandemic, companies and startups have started investing in business travel to generate incremental revenue. To make sure travelers feel safe, they have revamped their corporate travel policies. They are now constantly looking for advanced solutions like business travel management software to make it easier for employees to book flights, accommodations, and car rentals. But business travelers like you need several business travel products to make work trips successful. The fact is, some of these business travel products will help you improve your efficiency at work, while others will improve your overall experience as a business traveler. At the same time, there are certain accessories that can't be ignored in order to stay comfortable and safe in the post-pandemic age.
The responsibilities and roles of travel managers have evolved over the years. Today, they analyze employee travel data to gain actionable insights for improving traveler experiences and controlling business travel expenses. However, business travel booking will remain one of the key responsibilities of many companies. When planning a business trip, be sure to focus on two important factors. First, choose your corporate travel booking carefully to make sure the work traveler is safe and stress-free during the trip. Second, keep your travel policy in mind when planning business travel bookings so they do not violate this policy and inflate your budget.
Because the COVID-19 pandemic has become endemic in most geographic regions, companies and startups are increasing business travel budgets and making employees travel to various destinations. But traveler safety and security continue to be important aspects of business travel, as companies revamp their existing policies to include a dedicated set of policies for traveler safety. This is called a corporate travel security policy.
Companies and startups invest in business travel expenses with the aim of building business relationships and closing more deals. By establishing corporate travel programs, enterprises can enhance the employee travel experience by allowing employees to take advantage of flexible booking options, including airfare discounts and other perks. A travel management agency or travel management company makes it easier for clients to manage and meet their business travel requirements by providing a variety of services, solutions, and tools. In addition to boosting employees’ work travel experience, travel management agencies help employers reduce business travel expenses and make data-driven decisions. Source : https://itilite.wordpress.com/2022/07/26/what-are-the-9-basic-functions-of-a-travel-management-agency/
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