The internationalization of companies favors the globalization of their travel programs

Many companies in our country are considering the globalization of their travel programs, due to the international expansion of their business. This strategy results in efficiency and cost savings. However, implementation is not easy, due to the idiosyncrasies of each market, especially those outside the Western world. Forum Business Travel has broken down in Mad

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The standardization of business travel management processes in the different countries where a company operates allows centralized management control and coordination of indicators to establish service comparisons. According to the experts gathered by Forum Business Travel at the Tryp Ambassador hotel in Madrid, this process, which is being carried out by many Spanish companies, although necessary, is not without its difficulties.

Agustín Casado, travel manager at Eptisa, one of the speakers at the conference,

It is not easy to implement a global travel policy, as each country works differently. Local markets are disparate, especially when we leave the EU, Canada and the US. In some there are problems of legal uncertainty, with regulations and customs that are difficult to harmonize. Even suppliers with a multinational presence do not behave the same in all countries.

Despite all this, Spanish companies are becoming increasingly aware of the need to globalize their management, says Casado, who recommends carrying out a “previous analysis of the market to which the implantation is addressed and apply some flexibility to the travel policy of the head office to adjust to local peculiarities”.

AsCharles de Bonnecorse, director of Sales for Spain at American Express Barceló Viajes, "the success of globalization      ";The success of the globalization of a travel program depends directly on the company's ability to involve its subsidiaries in the entire process, from the assessment of local needs to the implementation of the service, guaranteed through a Global SLA (Service Level Agreement).

Oacute;scar García, founding partner of FBT, underlined the importance of involving the general management of the company: “we have to find the balance between pure and hard imposition and excessive tolerance in order not to create tensions. It is more a matter of convincing than winning."

Once the travel policy is in place, there is an essential follow-up period. For Pilar Navas, expert in travel management, “at the beginning the control must be exhaustive to detect divergences as soon as possible, but neither must we lower our guard afterwards, because travel programs are alive, the destinations to which we travel change, and if the circumstances and the market environment doní they do”.

In conclusion, and as pointed out by Marcos Franco, chief marketing officer of Transhotel, “homogenization and cost control in business travel have in technology an essential and necessary collaborator. The industry has to innovate in order to offer tools capable of bringing together any expense produced in each of the phases of a business trip. Only in this way, by means of a clear, reliable and easy-to-compare snapshot, will it be possible to optimize this type of action to the maximum and measure its benefits to the thousandth degree.”

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