The Business Traveler’s Perspective

Business traveler perception is business traveler reality. Regardless of how travel professionals communicate their travel policy, traveler comprehension reigns supreme. If your message doesn’t get across, there may be dire consequences for both your travelers and your company.

A couple of months ago, GBTA Foundation released a new study, in partnership with HRS, exploring business traveler perspectives of company travel policies, compliance rates, and valued amenities. GBTA recently held a webinar called The Business Traveller’s Perspective: Policy + Preferences in which GBTA Research Manager Kate Vasiloff walked through the results. She demonstrated how communication gaps lead to disconnects between travelers and travel professionals, and, in turn, low compliance rates and financial consequences.

Kate also offered a list of recommendations for travel professionals to improve their communication efforts and increase compliance:

1. Perform internal audits to determine which negotiated amenities your business travelers are using. Take note of which amenities are underutilized, and use your negotiating leverage elsewhere.

2. Capture data from the back end to better understand traveler behavior. Work with your finance team to require travelers to list itemized expenses for each major category. For example, have them break the hotel category down (breakfast, room service, etc.) to determine which items are actually being used, instead of relying on your business traveler to give a full report on what they did.

3. Help your travelers make the right choice. One out of five (20 percent) business travelers report not receiving a message when booking out-of-policy. Set up messages and alerts in your online booking tool to inform them.

GBTA members may view the webinar in full through the Hub. These sessions are just around the corner:

• How Technologically Mature is Your Travel Program? (Thursday, January 26 – 2:00 PM ET)
• Proven Trade Show Basics Haven’t Changed… Learn How to Best Maximize Them to Work for You! (Wednesday, February 22 – 2:00 PM ET)
• GBTA New Resource Tools – Managed Travel Index® and Sustainability in Travel Self-Assessment (Thursday, February 23 – 2:00 PM ET)
• Hotel Billing- Opportunities & Advancement (Thursday, March 16 – 2:00 PM ET)

The full schedule of webinars is available here.