How to increase travel policy compliance

Travel policies are designed to control costs, improve traveler safety, streamline approvals, and support company goals. Yet even the best-written travel policy can fail if employees don’t understand it, can’t follow it, or find workarounds that lead to incompliance. 

In this guide, we’ll explore the most common reasons travel policy compliance breaks down and provide a step-by-step framework to improve adherence through better processes, communication, and automation. 

Examples of travel policy compliance

• Booking through approved channels
• Following prescribed approval workflows
• Staying within air and hotel rate caps
• Submitting expenses on time
• Uploading required receipts
• Following duty-of-care requirements
• Using preferred suppliers when applicable
• Using the approved travel and expense management platform, like GetGoing

5 Reasons why travel policy compliance is important

1. Cost control

Unmanaged bookings and out-of-policy spending can quickly inflate travel budgets.

2. Better visibility

Organizations gain more accurate reporting when bookings and expenses stay within approved systems.

3. Duty of care

Compliance helps companies know where travelers are and support them during disruptions.

4. Faster expense processing

Standardized workflows reduce delays and manual reviews.

5. Stronger governance

Clear accountability supports consistent policy enforcement across teams. 

Steps to boost travel policy compliance

Boosting travel compliance starts with knowing where compliance is failing. The most common reason is that travelers are not able to access or understand the company travel policy, or it’s too complex to follow.

Step 1: Identify where compliance is failing

Before fixing the problem, understand where it occurs. Identifying the loopholes in your travel  policy will help you fix them in a smooth way.

Review compliance data

Look for:

• Out-of-policy bookings
• Late expense submissions
• Missing approvals
• Missing receipts
• Use of non-approved booking channels

Ask key questions

• Which travelers have the lowest compliance rates?
• Which policy rules are most frequently ignored?
• At what stage does compliance break down?

Step 2: Determine the root cause

Many organizations assume employees are intentionally ignoring policy. In reality, non-compliance often stems from friction or if the travel policy is too complicated.

Root cause #1: The policy is too complicated

Signs:

• Multiple documents
• Too many exceptions
• Frequent questions from travelers

Fix:

• Simplify the policy
• Use plain language
• Focus on the rules that matter most
• Automate your travel policy with a travel and expense management platform like GetGoing.

Root cause #2: The booking experience is frustrating

Signs:

• Travelers booking outside approved tools
• Low adoption of travel platforms

Fix:

• Make policy-compliant options easier to book
• Reduce approval bottlenecks
• Improve traveler experience

Root cause #3: Employees don’t understand why

Signs:

• Frequent policy exceptions
• Pushback from travelers

Fix: Explain how compliance supports:

• Budget control
• Traveler safety
• Sustainability goals
• Fairness across teams
• Working towards the larger company’s objectives

Root cause #4: Managers aren’t reinforcing compliance

Compliance needs to start from the top down. If managers aren’t respecting the travel policy, how can they expect their direct reports to?

Signs:

• Inconsistent approvals
• Different rules across departments

Fix:

• Clearly define responsibilities
• Hold approvers accountable
• Standardize approval criteria

Clear traveler and approver accountability is a sign of a business travel program that is working for your company.

Step 3: Remove manual processes

Manual processes create loopholes and more probabilities that people won’t live up to the travel policy. 

Common compliance risks

• Email-based approvals
• Spreadsheet tracking
• Manual expense reviews
• Separate travel and expense systems

Replace with automated workflows

Automation can:

• Enforce approval rules
• Apply rate caps
• Require receipts
• Flag exceptions automatically
• Guide travelers toward compliant choices

Your internal travel policy materials emphasize that automation helps ensure travel policy compliance through automated approvals, controls, and price caps.

Step 4: Use travel policy automation to influence behavior

Rather than policing travelers after the fact, guide them toward compliant choices from the start.

Examples of automated policy controls

Hotel rate caps

Prevent excessive hotel spend.

Flight budget controls

Display preferred options within company limits.

Automated approvals

Only escalate bookings that exceed policy thresholds.

Preferred supplier prioritization

Surface approved suppliers first.

Expense validation

Automatically flag missing receipts and out-of-policy expenses.

Step 5: Communicate and train employees regularly

A policy launch isn’t enough, you need to work on keeping travel policy compliance top of mind.

Keep compliance top of mind

• Quarterly reminders
• New employee onboarding
• Quick-reference guides
• In-app policy messages

Step 6: Measure compliance over time with the right KPIs

You can’t improve what you don’t measure. Learn about essential travel management KPIs for smarter business travel: https://www.getgoing.com/blog/travel-management-kpis/

Key travel compliance KPIs

Booking compliance rate

Percentage of bookings made through approved channels.

Policy exception rate

Percentage of bookings requiring exceptions.

Expense compliance rate

Percentage of expense reports submitted correctly the first time.

Approval cycle time

Time required to approve travel requests.

Receipt submission rate

Percentage of expenses submitted with required documentation.

What are the 5 most common travel policy compliance mistakes?

1. Creating policies that are too strict
2. Making approval processes slow
3. Communicating policy only once and assuming everyone understands without the proper regular trainings set up to follow through
4. Treating compliance as a traveler problem instead of a workflow problem
5. Relying on manual enforcement instead of automation

Bottom line: business travel policy compliance

Improving travel policy compliance isn’t about creating stricter rules. It’s about understanding why employees struggle to follow them and then removing the barriers that cause non-compliance.

By identifying root causes, simplifying workflows, and using travel and expense automation to enforce policy automatically, organizations can increase compliance, reduce costs, and create a smoother experience for both travelers and finance teams.