Can User-Friendly Travel Tools Ease the Stress of Corporate Travel?
Business travel has become more challenging, especially even before you actually leave. According to research from SAP Concur, the most stressful part for many business travellers is the pre-trip phase—things like planning and booking. In fact, 43 percent of business travellers find this phase the most stressful, and that number has increased by 4 percent from the previous year.
João Carvalho, the managing director of SAP Concur for Southern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, points out that there are additional hurdles, like unexpected travel disruptions and the time-consuming task of reporting expenses. He explains that these complications make business travellers want more intuitive, user-friendly solutions to manage their trips. Without these kinds of tools, employees might end up booking outside of their company’s approved systems, or they might have to deal with frustrating processes within the existing systems. Either way, it’s a lose-lose situation for the business, impacting not just the travellers but also the travel managers and HR teams.
Carvalho then highlights four ways consumer-grade tools are setting new standards in corporate travel:
Balancing Traveler Safety with Efficiency: When employees book their travel independently, companies lose visibility, making it harder for travel and HR managers to meet their duty-of-care obligations. This is why having user-friendly travel and expense (T&E) management solutions is so important. These tools encourage employees to use the company’s systems by allowing them to book directly with suppliers while still capturing and integrating these transactions into the company’s T&E solution. This ensures that the company can still maintain visibility and provide support when needed.
Mitigating Risk and Enhancing Compliance: Risk and compliance are major concerns for travel managers. By using systems that integrate the company’s travel policies and are easy to use, employees are more likely to make compliant choices. This reduces the need for manual oversight, keeps employees informed of policy changes, and ultimately makes the booking process smoother, increasing overall compliance.
Streamlining Business Travel: Efficiency in travel management is key, and that includes all stages of the trip—before, during, and after. Tools that offer a consumer-like interface with streamlined processes can significantly improve employee satisfaction. Plus, it frees up travel managers to focus on more strategic tasks instead of constantly troubleshooting issues.
Advancing ESG Commitments: ESG (Environmental, Social, and Governance) standards are becoming more critical for companies today. As sustainable travel gains importance, companies need tools that help travellers make eco-friendly choices easily. For example, tools that automatically provide data on the carbon emissions of different travel options can help travellers make decisions that align with the company’s ESG goals.
Carvalho wraps it up by saying that a superior user experience is key to handling the complexities of business travel. By investing in user-friendly technology, companies can not only enhance traveler satisfaction but also reduce administrative burdens and empower employees to make eco-conscious and compliant decisions, which ultimately transforms how business travel is managed.
