Travel manager, an invisible figure in the face of the blindness of some companies
After many years in a sector that I am passionate about, I have always thought that Spain, with its level of business passengers, the quality of tourism we offer and its strategic position in Europe, would have a clear understanding of the importance and value that having a Business Travel Manager or Corporate Travel Manager brings to companies. But I was wrong. Looking on LinkedIn for indicative salaries to make a study, this position does not appear…
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Although optimistic by nature, in Spain there is still a long way to go to make the Travel Manager figure visible. In many cases, it depends on the Purchasing Department, in others it is a figure that appears under the umbrella of Human Resources or it is simply a task delegated to the Secretary of the Presidency in the case of small companies, but there are few occasions in which this function has its own entity or department.
It is a crass mistake on the part of the companies not to grant the importance and value that this division can generate in the company. I am going to detail only some of the reasons why it is absolutely necessary for them to be business units by themselves and not depend on others:
1) The second or third most important spending cap for companies is in Business Travel, and to a lesser extent, depending on the company, in MICE, to represent it around the world, achieve marketing actions or simply, to make products visible. Those who understand travel are the professionals who know the complexity of this world. We have all had in our e-mail inbox the message: "I have found better deals on the Internet for my trip". And where are the security reasons, the corporate agreements to improve the customer experience and the respect for a defined travel policy? Such awareness is the job of business travel professionals, not of a purchasing manager or HR manager.
2) Detecting the travel health of employees and trying to avoid the so called «travel friction is a task that corresponds to the travel manager in collaboration with Human Resources, of course;However, travel managers are the ones who know the complexity of corporate travel, and they are also the ones who can help their HR colleagues to look for the best options to update the travel policy and avoid that burn-out in passengers traveling for work purposes.
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3)Loyalizing employees so that they become allies in complying with the travel policy, which is always evolving, is the job of the travel manager. The reading of savings data, the implementation of corrective actions or, why not, gamification actions, is again a two-way job, the travel manager and the financial or purchasing management.
4) To set an example, start with the company's top management. It is impossible to properly manage a travel policy or passenger management if your top management lives a «parallel reality&quo; to what your travel policy says. The company's top travel manager has a seat each month on that board of directors, general management or board of directors.
Over the last few months I have been giving many conferences and participated in many round tables where, after finishing the event, the general complaint was clear from Business Travel professionals: WE ARE INVISIBLE, we are only called if expenses soar and therefore, we will go to the immediate cut, and, of course, we are «the travel girls/boys» who are called when there are problems, however minor they may be and that, evidently, are fá easily solvable by the TMC.
For all these reasons, this article is addressed to those brave people who every day put on the business travel manager suit and navigate against all odds in their company on a daily basis. And my constructive criticism to companies to stop for two minutes and review whether it is really convenient to create a business unit with its own entity if they do not want to lose value, money and talent all over the corners of their companies.