Business travel management has been taken by storm in recent years for a variety of reasons. These include the challenges that have arisen since pandemic times, the digitalization and the increasing consumer demand for seamless processes.
Today, the shift has meant new expectations around business travel processes. These are now characterized by a focus on simplicity (with actions such as self-booking and increased personalized options). The trust between travelers and companies, or the sustainability, among other factors.
On top, the ROI of corporate travel is more and more inspected and taken into account, considering rising prices and inflation on a global scale.
How can hotel managers ensure they provide the perfect user experience while, at the same time, optimizing their business travel management practices? Let’s take a look at our brief guide for efficient business travel management.
Business travel management refers to the set of processes involved in corporate travel, including planning, booking, expense management, regulation compliance, and travel cost optimization.
The aim of efficient business travel management is to guarantee cost-effective, safe, and seamless trips for employees. Although it also involves maximizing the time spent on business activities, managing risks, or complying with legal and regulatory requirements.
In the context of business travel management, it’s the responsibility of travelers to:
On the side of accommodation providers, hotels and resorts remain key players in business travel management processes.
In this case, they’re in charge of providing the right spaces for meetings and events. Also, suitable accommodations, while guaranteeing their operations remain efficient from all points of view.
Some challenges that are currently arising on the side of accommodation providers include:
The transformations and challenges around business travel management have, nonetheless, valuable allies in the use of several technological tools. As such, event management software and platforms with the aim of facilitating booking management are helping companies optimize their internal MICE sales processes.
These technological tools allow hotels and independent venues to increase their revenues and minimize the time that human teams need to dedicate to repetitive tasks.
Many internal processes related to business travel management are still manual but could be highly automated. This, in turn, means optimizing time and other valuable resources, becoming a significant shift for organizations.
Some potential automations thanks to the use of software include:
Spazious iSEM® (Immersive Sales and Events Management) has completely revolutionized the work processes at hotels’ sales teams around travel management.
Spazious generates meetings and events instant bookings. Furthermore, it manages MICE contacts through its sales and catering software, having access to a dynamic revenue management module, as well as generating 3D diagram platforms for hotel venues.
Time and attention have become a more and more valuable resources for everyone within the business travel management context. This means event planners will also favor solutions that allow them to generate the perfect, seamless experience while not wasting any time on calls.
Digital tools for 3D event diagramming stand out as essential devices to facilitate work for everyone involved.
At the same time, the sales reps that organize site inspections are also able to optimize customer experience, and thus attract more business opportunities.
Hotel operators looking to optimize their business travel management will see improvements in generating incentive plans. The aim is to attract better and more business opportunities in the MICE and business travel sector.
While sales teams have experienced important reductions and as digital tools continue increasing their added value for hotel operators, the truth is human teams continue to be an important asset for organizations.
The incorporation of a person whose role is to monitor the use of digital tools related to MICE equals revenue increases for businesses.
Once the right digital tools have been added to a business strategy, it’s important for operators to communicate effectively with event planners the type of advantages that are now in their hands. This is why sales strategies must now be developed taking digital tools into account.
Another advantage of this optimization in terms of sales strategies is that sales teams will save time, as they won’t need to take care of unsuccessful RFPs.
Want to learn more about how digital tools are enhancing business travel management and helping human teams in companies make the most of their resources?
At Spazious we can help you. Our software guarantees the booking and scheduling of event spaces move from inefficient manual processes to perfect booking. Get in touch with us and speak to our team about how we can help you!
