Measure the Success of Your Travel Program

Travel is an essential part of how we do business. Whether we’re trying to close the deal, build that important client relationship, or bring the team together for that strategic planning meeting, we all know “being there” is more effective than not.

Regardless of pandemics, geopolitical events, or weather, travel drives business growth.

Because of this fact, travel and expense (T&E) is often the second-largest line item in the budget behind labor. As with any operating cost, however, businesses must capture data and establish the right key performance indicators (KPIs) to maximize the return on investment of their travel program.

CI Azumano Business Travel has prepared this short guide to help finance, procurement, and travel managers build the right metrics to track and manage the effectiveness of their travel program.

A managed travel program will lower your business’ total cost of travel:

Managed travel programs have repeatedly proven their value to businesses around the world. Travelers who book through approved booking channels and with a company’s preferred suppliers make better buying decisions, saving the company money. Here are a few cost-saving examples:

• Airlines: Increasing advance purchase bookings while tracking and re-using the residual value from unused tickets can reduce a company’s total airline spend by as much as 10%

• Hotels: Implementing negotiated rates at key hotels and then driving program adoption to stay at those hotels can save as much as 5% off of total hotel spend.

• Bonus tickets and amenity programs: Negotiated supplier agreements with preferred airlines and hoteliers also provide intangible benefits from points and amenity programs that can result in free tickets (in the case of airlines) or free breakfasts or transfers (in the case of hotels) that can add up to tremendous value for a business over time.

With the right travel management partner and the right KPIs in place to plan, measure, and adjust (if necessary) to new information; cost savings and value adds can be relatively easy to achieve.

KPIs that demonstrate the effectiveness of your managed travel program

Program Adoption: Program adoption drives all of the other metrics, which makes it the core measurement for any travel management program. In short, how many business travelers are booking within the company travel program? Divide booked and ticketed volume by total travel volume and you’ll get a handle on total booking visibility. The closer a business gets to 100% adoption of the corporate booking tool or booking with a travel agent, the more likely they are to capture the significant savings targets they’ve set.

Program adoption can be significantly increased by tracking and managing to the next set of KPIs: Traveler Satisfaction and Policy Compliance

Traveler Satisfaction: Traveler surveys determine how business travelers feel about the travel program, creating a valuable feedback channel that helps programs respond to questions, critiques, and challenges.

Policy Compliance: A corporate travel policy is an essential element of a business’ travel program. It aligns travelers booking guidelines to company objectives while also protecting employee safety and security.

A policy compliance KPI tracks how often your travelers are booking according to travel policy, and identifies individual travelers or departments that might need some additional training or incentives to improve policy adoption.

Supplier Management: Supplier management KPIs provide valuable hard data to show the return on investment of your travel program. Having clean, measurable data on travel supplier spend provides powerful leverage during supplier negotiations, while comparing spend against industry benchmarks can indicate if more savings are possible.

Top Airlines: Securing a preferred carrier relationship will provide dividends for your travel program, so encouraging travelers to concentrate on a preferred carrier can drive meaningful results. Businesses should implement a Top Airlines KPI that tracks total air volume booked and ticketed, but also in what cabin class, and to what destinations. 

Tracking Unused Tickets: As much as 10% of airline tickets end up with changes, leaving residual ticket value that can be captured if airline rules are followed. As a result, tracking unused airline tickets is an effective KPI to capture the unrealized value of your travel spend. A Travel Management Company like CI Azumano integrates unused ticket alerts into a traveler’s booking process, so they are always aware when an unused ticket is available, ensuring the residual value of every changed ticket is captured.

Top Hotels & Hotel Savings: Hotel discounts via negotiated rates are another straightforward and powerful way to drive savings. A Top Hotel KPI gives businesses insight into opportunities that the business may have to negotiate preferred rates. Once negotiated rates are secured, a Hotel Savings KPI compares the market rate versus a business’ negotiated rate and calculates the savings against the hotel booking volume.

Travel KPIs are the Key to Capturing Savings

Measuring the progress towards the achievement of goals is an essential part of any business initiative. Success is hard to achieve without the right data to inform, assess and adjust; not only for a travel program but for the business overall.

Business travel will remain an essential driver of business growth, regardless of what the world throws at us. Take this opportunity to establish your travel management goals. Once they are established, CI Azumano can help collect and track against the right KPIs to ensure success. CI Azumano Business Travel has constructed a powerful set of reporting and analytics tools, giving businesses the data, they need to define and measure success.

CI Azumano has a fifty-year track record servicing Fortune 1000 companies and the US Government. As an Elite Concur Partner, CI Azumano is part of a select group of TMCs supporting the world’s most popular and powerful online and mobile travel booking management platform. We also integrate with leading international travel security firms.

Reach out to us to learn more about how CI Azumano Business Travel can help you protect your travelers with the top-level service and support they deserve.