If you frequently travel for business, then you certainly have a corporate travel policy in place. However, not every corporate travel policy is created equal, and even the slightest misjudgment can lead to irrational spending. 

We tried to cover the best practices in making corporate travel policies for your business and help you out in making the one that will suit your needs the best.

What is a corporate travel policy?

A corporate travel policy is a set of company rules and procedures that outline how employees should manage their business travel. Most commonly, the financial department makes corporate travel policies. They take into account things such as how many weeks in advance trips should be booked, which class employees should fly in, what precautions employees must take, and their per diem spendings.

A well-developed corporate travel policy usually has information about:

• The booking procedure and approved travel booking tool
• Allowed cost of the booking (including hotels, flights, city transport) 
• Exceptions to rules (for instance, when employees travel to more expensive states) 
• The approval process for trips that exceed typical limitations
• Reimbursement process
• Allowed expenses
• Travel insurance carrier

Why Corporate Travel Policies Matter (and why you should have one)?

Corporate travel policies are extremely important and useful. They allow businesses to have greater control over their travel spending, improve employee experience, and ensure their safety. Lastly, corporate travel policies bring more equality since everybody has to abide by the same rules while managing their business travel.

What to include in a corporate travel policy?

Making a corporate travel policy for your business won’t be an easy job. This is the case since there are plenty of things to consider. Firstly, you need to determine ground rules about how people from your company will travel, who will travel, and for what reason. However, there are some common things we can find in any corporate travel policy.

For instance, you’ll have to decide and include your preferred booking process and tool. This means deciding if you want your employees to book with one business travel platform or make them book for themselves within the policy. Or making an office manager make the bookings for all trips.

Furthermore, a corporate travel policy should contain a detailed expense and reimbursement process. 

Lastly, when making a corporate travel policy, you should include all the safety information your traveling employees will need and the info about what they should do in case of an emergency as well as the insurance information.

Don’t forget employee satisfaction.

Usually, companies think about the expenses first while overlooking traveler satisfaction at the same time. However, a good part of scaling the business is in keeping your employees happy.

One study reports that 75 percent of respondents believed that traveler service improvements could improve compliance because it can change travelers’ behavior. 

You must be wondering how businesses can enhance traveler satisfaction. And there’s a simple solution.

They can ask their employees for feedback and use it to shape future policy and vendor decisions. Travel managers can easily make online surveys to collect data about employees’ experiences and preferences. The goal is to learn about their likes and dislikes and consider those preferences in future decisions about their travel.

Another approach to improve traveler satisfaction is to empower staff with a booking engine that takes into consideration their personal preferences without losing focus on corporate travel policies. This can be achieved by going via a provider that uses NDC technology or holds NDC certification.

Luckily, Thomalex likes to be ahead of time. This is how we got an “NDC Certification” level 3, which can make your (and your employees’) travel more personalized, resulting in a much easier, more comfortable, and pleasurable travel experience. 

After connecting with us, you can access NDC content and choose the deals that suit your specific needs. By choosing Thomalex, you won’t have to compromise anymore. Instead, you’ll be able to use corporate travel privileges to the fullest. All you need to contact us to get started!