6 Ways to Reduce Business Travel Expenses

Running a business is not an easy task especially when it involves a lot of traveling. Most importantly, if you run a small business, you probably always want to opt for cost-effective ways to reduce business travel expenses. Particularly, when you book a flight just before the due date, it can cost you a lot more than usual. Since you have to pay a lot for such flights it can affect your business in terms of overall cost and benefit impact. However, there are a number of ways through which you can diminish travel expenses while traveling a lot. But, always make sure that cutting the cost of travel should not ruin your business trip in terms of quality experience. There is a trade-off. You can use some of the following ways to have a quality experience in terms of both travel quality and travel expense:

1. Plan ahead

This is one of the most useful and simplest solutions if you want to cut the cost of traveling a lot. It never means that you need to plan a business trip months ahead. Even if you can plan your trip a week before the actual trip, it can help you cut the cost of traveling a lot. Especially, if you have to travel frequently, you should plan your trips ahead of time. In this way, a small reduction in cost can bring much difference when seen collectively. However, you may not find time always for planning and booking ahead. In such a scenario, you can opt for a number of other options. Keep reading!

2. Look for travel agencies

If you feel that you are unable to plan ahead due to the nature of your business, you can use the services of a travel agency. Search for the travel agency after reading their clients’ response. There are a number of international travel groups that can help in this regard. Search wisely and read reviews before you choose. Once you have chosen the travel agency you want to get along, you can plan your trips with them. Especially, if you are a busy kind of person and unable to search for cost-effective traveling solutions, hiring a travel agent can be immensely useful.

Use Apps skilfully

Thanks to technology, we live in a sphere where everything is so connected that you can get help easily when it comes to search for anything. Same is true for business travels. If you can understand how to use travel apps artfully, you are already half done. You will have to have a number of apps in your cell phone to search for the inexpensive flights. You can consider such apps a kind of travel robot or virtual agent which can help you in a number of ways. By using such apps, you can not only book inexpensive flights but also cheap hotels and transportation service. Thus, you can save more by spending less on your entire business trip. One more thing that you should take care of is that you should use a number of similar apps to compare the cost of the flights. Some of the apps that you can use for this purpose are mentioned below:

• Adelman
• TripAdvisor
• CheapOair
• Kayak
• Skyscan

Sometimes, relying solely on a single app may not be much effective in terms of cost-effectiveness. You may hear about a number of travel apps that are good enough to book a cheap flight. However, you can judge it on your own after using them a few times. So, keep searching every now and then until you get a few apps to satisfy your budgetary needs. It will help you to travel without blowing out your budget.

3. Use an employee reward program

This is a very good tactic to reduce overall business travel expenses. If you own a small or medium-sized business and want to cut the cost of traveling, you can opt for an employee reward program. Now the question arises that how it can help you to introduce the overall business travel expenditures. Here comes the answer. You can incentivize your employees if they can save on business trips.

Not only small and medium-sized businesses but also Fortune 500 companies use this technique to lessen the expenses of business trips. So, you can see how effective this method is to help you save money on business trips. Thus, they themselves will spend time in searching for such international travel group which can help them in saving money on a business trip. Company’s time will get saved this way.

Every time a business trip is planned, the concerned department can calculate the average cost of the entire trip. You can encourage your employees to spend as less as possible on business trips. How? As a reward, you can offer them different kind of incentives. There can be some points added to their performance-based promotion. In addition, you can encourage your employees to do so by offering them gift cards. Especially, if your business does not possess a separate travel management system, this tactic can be of great use.

4. Check airlines’ websites too

Sometimes, a number of travel apps do not update as soon as the website of an airline is updated. So, search the websites of different airlines to check if a seat is available or not. Thus, rather than booking through any outside booking system, you can directly book cheap flight ahead of time right on the airline’s own booking system. Thus, being ahead of everyone and ahead of time will help you immensely in terms of cutting back on travel expenses.

5. Use Airlines with low base rates

Some Airlines are notoriously known for charging for almost every facility. Some of the travelers may hate it; however, you can save a lot on your business trip by not taking many facilities. Any good international travel group can help you find such airlines which have the lowest base fare. For business trips, you normally need just a briefcase or backpack. Thus, you can save a lot on short business trips while not opting for the expensive facilities.

In a nutshell, it can be said that it is not difficult to reduce the cost of business travel if you start opting for the aforementioned tactics. Happy traveling!