A report from Deloitte called “Return to a World Transformed: How the Pandemic is Reshaping Corporate Travel” said this: “While many road warriors are ready to return to a consistent travel schedule, ongoing health concerns and shifting workplace priorities will influence the future of corporate travel. The changes adopted and lessons learned during the pandemic, combined with progress toward sustainability commitments, are creating a new normal for corporate travel.”
It has been a long time since travel management was simply a matter of cutting costs, but the pandemic has heightened the importance of personal safety and traveler well-being. Going forward, travel managers will be moving further from that cost-cutting mode and toward being proactive as they use data to stay on top of changing travel programs and traveler needs.
And the pandemic has exposed gaps in travel management programs that need to be addressed and, hopefully, filled. While travel managers have not had to spend time attending to their traditional tasks — negotiating rates, booking travel, handling expenses — they have had to watch in frustration as the landscape changed almost daily about who could travel and where, how to deal with hotel and car rental cancellations and managing unused airline tickets. And all of this while working mostly on GoToMeeting or other virtual platforms.
The purpose of this white paper is to offer guidelines about how travel managers might navigate the coming months as the world bumpily — and hopefully — emerges from the pandemic. Even as variants lurk and restrictions change daily, travel managers must show their value to the company or organization by knowing when business trips are actually necessary, managing those trips, and ensuring that travelers are satisfied that they are being cared for and appreciated.
While this paper draws on opinions and research from multiple sources, it also offers the data-based views of Grasp Technologies, a company founded in 1996 — a provider of travel data management, visualization and payment solutions in the T&E industry. Initially founded to address the critical need for customized reporting and data management in the travel industry, Grasp Technologies has held to its belief in helping its customers thrive and succeed by transforming data into useful intelligence.
Although travel managers and corporate travel departments now face myriad challenges, this paper focuses on four: travel budgeting, unused tickets, traveler habits and carbon & sustainability — because proper data analysis management can be leveraged significantly in those areas.
To learn more, download your copy of this PDF of this white paper below!
