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If you’re enlisting the services of a corporate travel provider, a crucial component in the partnership is the booking platform they provide. The right online booking technology can make all the difference to ensuring a smooth, efficient and cost-effective travel programme for your organisation.
According to a recent Business Travel Show Europe survey, travel buyers believe the impact of online booking tools has been as great as the internet itself on business travel in the past 30 years. These platforms have revolutionised corporate travel, offering a user experience much like leisure apps. Making sure the booking technology you use is up to scratch is more important than ever. The right booking platforms will enhance your travel policy and support your people in making healthier, more sustainable travel choices, too.
There are many different options available when it comes to choosing a corporate travel provider and booking platform. So, it’s essential to ask the right questions to ensure that the technology meets your company’s specific needs. Here are some key queries to consider.
Every business is unique, and your online booking tool should have the flexibility to adapt to your specific challenges and preferences. Ask your corporate travel provider if their platform allows for customisation, such as incorporating your branding, integrating with preferred suppliers or tailoring the use interface to align with your company’s workflow. Our booking technology, LOGiC, offers all this and more. All options can be configured to support your corporate travel policy and user requirements, built on mobile-first technology. LOGiC is also fully SSO enabled, allowing bookers to access the tool from their own intranet without having to log-in to a separate system.
This is an important question because if you are offered an off the shelf platform developed by a third-party supplier, it’s likely that if won’t be as flexible as you need it to be. Plus, any changes that you do require will likely involve lengthy timelines and high charges. LOGiC is our proprietary technology, owned, developed and managed by our in-house team of experts. Modifications can be made swiftly, allowing us to be responsive to our clients’ evolving needs.
Maintaining compliance with your company’s travel policies is crucial for controlling costs and ensuring employee safety and well-being. The best tech delivers greater visibility and control over your travel programme. It’s essential to ask about the features and functionalities of the online booking tool that facilitate travel policy compliance, including built-in controls, pre-trip approval workflows and real-time notifications. These features are all enabled within LOGiC, where approval processes can be set up according to class of travel, price, preferred hotel/airline and journey time. What’s more, the approvals process is user-friendly and dynamic – we can even allow for bookings to be outside of policy to be made and notify managers of a breach.
Is yours a multi-divisional business with different tiered travel policies? You’ll need to know if your corporate travel provider’s booking platform allows you to set multiple policy allowances based on factors such as traveller status, destination or trip purpose, ensuring ultimate flexibility. Our platform LOGiC allows you to set granular policy guidelines for as many groups within your company as you need. Granular control over policy and pricing enables an ideal balance between cost control and traveller satisfaction.
For companies aiming to reduce their environmental impact, travel is often a key area of focus. The good news is that your booking platform should have the capability to help you meet sustainability targets. Inntel is committed to supporting clients in achieving their ESG goals. In LOGiC, users are shown the CO2e impact of their journey at the point of enquiry and a lower impact alternative is offered, when available. The system also boasts an integrated sustainable travel hub featuring the ESG policies from thousands of travel providers along with carbon calculators and a carbon reporting dashboard.
Cost-effectiveness is of course a top priority for any corporate travel programme. Ensure that, like LOGiC, your booking tool includes a price match guarantee at the point of enquiry that covers live data from multiple sources rather than cached. This means you’ll know you’re always getting the best available rates in real time, helping you optimise your travel spend. LOGiC can integrate with any new supplier without restrictions. Our platform also has a full choice of travel and hotel providers from a comprehensive range of sources, including global distribution systems (GDS), NDC, Booking.com and more for ultimate choice and competitive pricing.
Streamlining the payment process can significantly improve efficiency and accuracy in managing expenses. Ask if your corporate travel provider offers a verified billback service as part of their booking platform, allowing centralised invoicing. This not only simplifies the payment process but also provides greater visibility and control over travel spend. With our billback service, we have teams checking invoices against your bookings to ensure they are correct and the invoice falls within your policy for payment.