Your how-to guide to affordable business travel

It’s time to start traveling for business but you’re not sure where to begin as your small and medium sized business is on a tight budget. Is the return on investment enough to make it worthwhile? 

According to the Kellogg School of Management stated, “An overwhelming majority of corporate executives (81 %) believe a slow economy calls for more contact with clients, not less.This approach is readily quoted to justify or defend the purpose or the necessity of a business trip.” (Measuring return on investment of business travel). So if traveling for business is really a must, then the question of organizing affordable business trips is an important one. 

Keep reading to find out more!

The importance of a travel policy in affordable travel

A travel policy is your greatest alley when it comes to achieving affordable business travel. A travel policy can help manage costs and be adapted according to your budget needs. For example, in the case of a low budget, you can tighten travel guidelines, closely monitoring transportation and hotel classes, and travel guidelines to ensure linear cost-cutting and convenience. 

Other ways you can play with your travel policy is to make approved trips shorter and adjust the frequency with which travel is acceptable. If you really want to cut costs, you can consider, assessing in better detail the purpose of travel and examining alternatives to traveling like Zoom calls and video conferencing. 

Where can I find an affordable business travel agency?

The search for an affordable business travel agency starts with knowing what your needs are. As an SME the best chance is to go the online route. As your travel program will be more simple, have less requirements and need for customization, an online business travel management platform like GetGoing is a great idea because it’s budget-conscious and user-friendly. 

Affordable car rental for business travel

Affordable car rental isn’t always easy when you’re traveling for business because your workers need convenience. They arrive at their destination by flight and want to be able to go directly to get their car rental to depart on business. They also want to be able to book with their favorite providers and have the possibility of leaving their car at a different location rather than the one they arrived at. With a travel management platform you can easily sort through the best deals and also choose where to drop off the car if the pick-up and drop-off are in different cities.

Affordable hotels for business travelers

When it comes time for the best hotels for business travelers, it’s important to consider affordability as well. Working with a travel management platform you can benefit from negotiated rates from top travel providers, like top hotel brands and chains. Filter based on your preferences and book knowing that you have the best price. Using one platform to manage all your travel bookings is without a doubt the easiest way to ensure affordability.

The ROI of business travel

Return on investment or ROI or measuring the profitability of an investment isn’t automatic, especially when looking at business trips. It’s almost impossible to attribute a return to a business trip because money isn’t necessarily converted into goods or output. Instead a business trip is overhead that will be deducted from the proceeds. A business trip is more an investment that when managed correctly, with a detailed travel policy, can lead to non-quantifiable benefits, such as:

All of these benefits seem to indicate that indeed, business travel is a great investment, even if the effects aren’t immediately quantifiable.

Regularly review travel spend

Reviewing your travel dashboard and spend insights is key to optimizing your travel budget. This way you can understand patterns and help educate travelers about ways of improving their trip planning. You can also budget more efficiently because you can allocate more budget to the departments that travel more or are seeing good outcomes in terms of business goals. Knowledge is power so know your data.

Optimize business trips

It may seem weird that optimizing business trips can lead to more affordability but it does. By more efficiently planning your business trips you can visit clients by region so that you can save on flights and on time. Not only is it more efficient but is also better for traveler wellbeing because they’re not constantly packing up and leaving for a trip, but rather going for a few days at a time, meaning slightly longer trips but less frequent travel. 

For example, say you have a client in Los Angeles, another one in Riverside and another one in San Diego. You can fly into Los Angeles and rent a car, and drive to Riverside and then to San Diego, leaving the car rental in San Diego. This will be cheaper and less of a hassle than buying flight tickets to visit each destination. Plus you may be able to stay at one hotel more nights, which often leads to better rates.