By Ogunfowoke, Adeniyi Ayuba
MON, JANUARY 14 2019-theG&BJournal-Making corporate travel savings might sound like a challenge, especially if you have lots of employees flying to different locations at different times. But there are ways to keep your costs down without compromising on travellers’ safety or services. With a smart process in place, you can save money on every trip, and make both your travellers and your stakeholders happy. Jumia’s hotel & flight services, discusses the most effective ways to reduce your overall corporate travel spend in 2019.
Tighten up your corporate policy
From booking flights to meal allowances and handling expenses, there’s a lot to consider when setting out a corporate travel policy. That means there’s plenty that can slip through the net. Take a close look at your existing corporate travel policy and think about whether it’s robust enough to cover every area of travel spend within your company.
Sign up to a travel agency
If you want a complete corporate travel solution, a travel agency like Jumia’s hotel and flight services is your sure bet. There are countless and limitless largesse these companies would enjoy if they signup. They include amazing discounts on hotel and flight bookings, credit facility, sterling customer service and prompt response to queries. In addition, it gives you full visibility of all your travel arrangements, helping you make the right decisions that will lead to significant reductions in your costs.
Set realistic food and transport allowance
You might find that giving employees control over their food and transport spending can actually reduce overspending. Meal expenses can be set as an overall allowance per day, giving the employee the choice of how much to spend individually on breakfast, lunch and dinner. There’ll always be exceptions – so keep that five-star restaurant in reserve for your highest-profile client meetings. When it comes to transport, you should clearly advise employees to choose the most cost-effective method, factoring in journey times. This could include using their own vehicles to get from A to B and then reimbursing them.
Reward your employees
Every time your travellers pick a more cost-effective option, they’re saving the company money. Over the course of a year, that can really add up. So how about giving them an incentive to deliver further savings? It could be a voucher for their favourite store, a share of the savings, or time off – just some way of thanking employees for reducing your travel costs and encouraging them to keep doing it.
Have a pre-trip approval process
One of the simplest ways to reduce your corporate travel spend is by having an approval system in place for every booking. By making it clear who needs to give approval for travel, you won’t have the problem of trips having to be cancelled after they’ve been booked, triggering wasted expenditure.
Adeniyi Ayuba is PR Associate, Jumia Travel & Food
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