How to use data analytics to improve business travel planning

Managing travel for work is a constant stream of moving parts, including budgets, travel delays, employee wellbeing management, expenses and policy compliance. Without proper oversight of the data involved in corporate travel, planning relies on guesswork and reactive decisions. And with travelers spending on average $1,128 on a single business trip, the mismanagement of travel spend can be a huge source of budget leakage.

Access to business travel analytics like spend data, booking behavior and vendor usage means your travel managers will benefit from the visibility they need to make smarter decisions. When AI is added to the mix, so much of the draining shadow work of business travel planning is alleviated.

In this article, we explore practical uses and benefits of analytics and AI in modern travel management.

What is business travel analytics?

In simple terms, ‘business travel analytics’ means the process of examining key business travel data in order to identify patterns and make strategic decisions. It’s also the term used to refer to the combined data insights uncovered as a result of examining a range of individual datasets. 

The purpose of analytics in business travel is to help travel managers have comprehensive insight on how their current working travel process is performing, and how it can be improved.

Right from when a booking is made, there are several digital touchpoints where data is shared. These may be scattered across paper receipts, spreadsheets, emails with booking details and hotel booking platforms. The goal of gathering this information into a single overview, is to get an at-a-glance view of how your business travel is working. You may want answers to questions such as “which area of the business spends the most on work trips?” or “which car rental companies are most frequently booked across a two-year period?”.

Corporate travel data analytics can be split into three categories:

Team travel patterns

Having a clear insight into employee behaviors when planning trips helps travel managers to work out where non-compliance is happening within the process. 

• Reservation windows: Visibility into how long before a work trip an employee books their flight can help reveal if late bookings mean plane ticket prices are inflated

• Booking outside of your preferred vendor list: Is your team booking their trips within your vendor guidelines? Are they choosing airlines and hotel chains where you get a corporate discount?

• Policy compliance behaviors: What percentage of work trips are compliant with travel policies?

Spend leakage

Keeping travel costs under control is one of the key challenges for travel managers, with the average cost of a work trip in the US sitting at around $354.55 per day. The ability to keep track of cost spikes, unexpected trends or accounting issues is key to preventing spend leakage.

Here are some examples of how analytics can help travel managers and finance teams track spend leakage:

• Actual vs. budget spend: Assessing how a department, individual or entire organization is spending on work travel compared to the set budget.

• Out-of-pocket spend: Tracking where team members are filing non-compliant expenses, such as hotel rooms that are over budget.

• Uncovering tax opportunities: Monitoring transactions to ensure all trip expenses have the line-by-line breakdowns required for clean corporate tax deductions from the IRS.

Safety data

This data category can help you to better support your employee wellbeing commitments, helping to keep your team safe while on the move.

• Disruption logs: Uncover airports or flight routes that have persistent problems such as delays or baggage handler strikes. This will allow you to avoid these high-risk choices by amending your policy guidelines.

• Traveler tracking: If you’re using a travel management platform like Perk and have access to a traveler tracker solution, you’ll have an immediate overview of where every employee on a work trip is on their journey. 

• Cancellations: By assessing trip cancellation rates, you can discover which areas of your business need flexible rates.

How to use business travel analytics

Analyzing travel data isn’t about hiring a data scientist or spending hours crunching numbers. It’s about accessing all of the travel, booking and expense data you need to get a clear picture of what’s happening in your business, and have actionable analytics provided as standard. 

Here are some tips for managing business travel analytics before we get into the specifics of how using efficient travel management systems can help: 

• Define KPIs - Establish key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your company's financial goals

• Implement tracking tools - Use a dedicated system that captures data automatically

• Monitor performance against your goals - Review analytics dashboards to catch issues early 

• Use analytics to identify cost-saving opportunities - Take the guesswork out of choosing where to invest or cut costs

Metrics to include in a business travel planning dashboard

Here are some top-line ideas for travel planning metrics that will help you uncover gaps in your business travel process:

Uncover traveler behavior patterns with data

Certain travel behaviors or habits may be costing you money, such as cancellations or out-of-policy purchases. Business travel analytics can help shine a light on these and identify where there are training gaps.

• Late bookers

It may be the case that certain individuals or teams are prone to booking trips within a very narrow window, leading to the company paying premium prices for the privilege. It might be that there are genuine business reasons for why this is happening. Being in the know and armed with this useful data, is the first step in tackling the issue.

• Non-compliant spenders

Are some teams booking luxurious boutique hotels unnecessarily? Travel and spend management platforms can help you flag when employees on work trips choose accommodation types outside of company guidelines or go over-budget on bookings. This might indicate knowledge gaps, or reveal that your policies aren’t clear or accessible enough.

• Ignoring supplier deals

Some employees might be in the habit of choosing random vendors rather than sticking to approved company suppliers. This could mean corporate discounts or other benefits are missed. Again, is this due to a genuine knowledge gap? If so, you can use this information to revise your policy documentation.

Getting started with data analytics 

Segmented reporting

By using segmented reporting, filters will allow you to view your travel data by individual traveler, team, regional office, destination, payment method or transport type to see exactly where your budget is being used.

Perk’s AI feature also helps to eliminate manual reporting errors, by scanning uploaded expense receipts and matching them to transactions with ease.

Tracking in real time

With manual travel spend management systems, finance teams may not have the full picture until weeks after a trip has ended and all the expenses have been submitted. This makes forward-planning difficult and also means you can’t correct out-of-policy spending before it happens.

By implementing presets for exact travel budgets for each team or user centrally, this reduces the need to manually police travel spend. 

AI also becomes useful here when expenses are automatically mapped and tracked. Perk’s AI integration automates the entire expense management process, from receipt scanning and data entry to approval workflows and reconciliation. This means full visibility on spending throughout each trip.

Automated reporting 

Whichever regular reports your senior stakeholders need, automate them if you can. If recurring reports for travel metrics like budget breakdowns or wellbeing notes can be sent directly to your team’s inboxes, all the better.

Instant alerts

Forget manually policing travel spend and instead use automated notifications to alert you to policy breaches, critical risk alerts in your travelers’ locations and card compliance checks. This reduces the shadow work that’s usually involved in manually firefighting these unexpected changes.  

Perk’s built-in AI can also auto-approve expenses that are in policy, only routing complex cases to the manager’s inbox when it’s truly necessary.

Tips for more effective travel reporting

• Don’t overwhelm yourself - when setting up reports, start with between 4-6 key metrics and focus on nailing those to avoid overwhelming the team

• Review trends regularly - rather than waiting until the end of the month or quarter to examine your data, check in regularly so you can easily spot trends or cost leaks.

• Customize the data - not everyone in your organization will want the same reports. HR managers will want visibility of wellbeing metrics or data about any illnesses while traveling. Finance leaders will need cash flow statistics. Travel managers will require compliance numbers and vendor adoption figures. Make sure you share role-specific reports with the right stakeholders.

Get started with data analytics to improve your travel planning experience 

When your travel planning processes are backed up by real-world data, you’ll soon be fixing budget leakages, improving policy compliance and making the experience much simpler for everyone involved. 

Are you ready to simplify your corporate travel reporting and gain total visibility over your program? Book a demo now.