BLOG: Transaction-Based Travel Program vs. Strategic Travel Management

Measuring Effectiveness of Your Travel Program

When evaluating the effectiveness of your company’s travel program, you might look at the change in travel spend as a percentage of revenue from year to year, traveler satisfaction, the comprehensiveness of your duty of care plan, or any number of other measurements, both quantitative and qualitative. If you notice that results have slipped in any area, you’ll want to know if a plan is in place to take corrective action. All too often there’s no plan in place and that’s when you realize that your partnership with your travel management company has devolved into a strictly transaction-based relationship, i.e., they book your travel and that’s about it.

Proactive Monitoring

Your travel program requires proactive monitoring if it’s to fulfill its savings, efficiency, and travel risk management potential. Your travel management company should have a strategy in place to achieve your goals and be able to spot when your key performance indicators are trending in the wrong direction. At that point, you should receive guidance as to what changes need to take place in the strategy in order to correct course and continue advancing towards your goals. If this doesn’t describe your partnership with your travel management company, you’re likely suffering with basic service requests, as well. The good news is that there’s an antidote for the transaction-based travel program and it’s called strategic travel management.

Strategic Travel Management

Strategic travel management is proactive and responsive in all matters related to your travel program, e.g., overall travel program strategy, reporting and analytics monitoring, opportunity identification, supplier management, contract negotiation/monitoring, corrective action, booking tool maintenance/administration, customer service, travel risk management consultation, the latest technology offerings and much more.

If you find yourself in a transaction-based travel program and need help correcting course and navigating back to value and ROI, reach out to the Travel Leaders / Destinations Unlimited Corporate Travel Division.