Forum Business Travel sets guidelines to control extra expenses on business trips

Date : 08/04/2011
Author : Forum Business Travel

Companies could obtain greater savings in travel if they managed the extra expenses that occur in their trips, such as parking, the use of wifi in hotels or added services on the plane, among others, which represent 13% of the total. The second training session of Forum Business Travel in Madrid will provide the keys to establish this control.

The continuous training platform Forum Business Travel

Forum Business Travel

Continuous training platform finds that companies have difficulties in quantifying the additional expenses generated by their employees when they go on trips. This was made clear at the training session held yesterday in one of the meeting rooms of the Santiago Bernabéu

This location inaugurates a collaboration agreement between Forum Business Travel and Madrid Convention Bureau, which will provide unique spaces for future sessions.

According to the presentation given by Iván Clemente, in front of fifty travel managers, “consolidate the necessary information to calculate the total cost of the trip;n necessary to calculate the total cost of a trip is not easy, since it comes from internal and external sources, mainly the traveler's expense note and the travel agency”.

In his presentation, “How to quantify the total costs of corporate travel”, Clemente stressedó that suppliers are reaching a limit where prices cannot be lowered any further without eliminating part of the services.There is a tendency to unbundle the elements of the service so that the customer pays for what he needs," he explained. Moreover, it will increase as long as the negotiating pressure is based on price, according to Clemente.

To calculate costs properly, they must be analyzed before, during and after the trip. In the first phase, the same approval process presents opportunities for improvement, both in terms of time spent and resources consumed. The speed of decision making also has an impact on the price that is ultimately paid for tickets. When tickets are booked but not issued, they sometimes generate costs that are not taken into account.

During the trip, the possibilities for savings are many and varied, from negotiating special conditions with cab or parking companies, to contracting service packages that reduce the cost of separate consumption, to controlling refunds for unused tickets or creating travel models in the main destinations based on experience.

At the return from the trip, the justification of expenses is greatly facilitated by the use of payment methods that create transparent records, such as credit cards, even for small amounts.Paying in cash was already done by the Romans," ironized Iván Clemente.

In order to improve processes, technology is essential. Íñigo García-Aranda, commercial director of Amadeus and speaker at the Innovation Section of Forum Business Travel, indicated that self-booking tools are becoming one of the best ways to improve processes;n imposing as one of the best options for control and monitoring of the travel policy”, although he warned that its implementation process in companies can be slow and costly.“The benefit is perceived in the medium term in most cases”, a añadió.

These tools allow for greater automation of bookings, instant access to negotiated rates, digital signature authorizations, synchronization with internal management applications, detailed reports on possible deviations and even travel risk management, among many other functions.

Among the rest of the experts, Javier Ruz, head of Corporate Sales at Air Europa, pointed out that “nowadays it is difficult to close prices for the whole year, but that service packages can be negotiated on an ad hoc basis”.Hugo Rovira, vice president of Corporate Sales at Sol Meliá, warned that “exclusively based negotiation can compromise the quality of services”. For her part, Estefanía Ruiz, of American Express Barceló Viajes, stressedó that “the travel agency can be of great help in controlling added expenses and detecting hidden costs”.

Rafael Bilbao, marketing director of Halcón Empresas, also spoke, reminding the audience that "having a global vision of services is a great help when negotiating with suppliers". Gonzalo Casaubón, sales director for Spain at Transhotel, stressed the importance of hotel reservation centers to control costs by unifying the management of accommodation in a single channel.

In the working groups formed after the presentations, travel managers participating in the Forum Business Travel session concluded that companies' negotiations with travel suppliers will increasingly include the bundling of services that have been unbundled from the tariff to regain control over additional expenses.

To end the day, David Pérez Noack, deputy director of Madrid Convention Bureau, explained to the attendees the support and collaboration plan for travel managers and meeting planners;, deputy director of the Madrid Convention Bureau, explained to attendees the support and collaboration plan for travel managers and meeting planners of the city's congress office, and presented the new edition of the special venues catalogue, with a selection of 120 locations.

By courtesy of Real Madrid, those attending the training session were able to visit the facilities of the stadium, both its offer for meetings, as well as the locker rooms, the players' dugout or the authorities' box to finish with a cocktail offered by Vilaplana.