How to use travel management data for business growth

08 Sept 2021 · 6 MIN READ

Last updated: April 2026
Travel management data—the collection of booking, expense, compliance, and traveler behavior information generated through corporate travel activities—offers significant opportunities for business growth. When managing corporate travel, data improves efficiency, saves money, and provides a better experience for all your business travelers. It also informs other areas of your business.
Key ways travel data helps businesses:
  • Improves policy compliance rates
  • Reduces travel costs through predictive analysis
  • Increases operational efficiency
  • Supports sustainability and carbon tracking
Today, travel managers use available data to make better decisions for their company when it comes to business travel. It's not just about having access to data, but the quality of data you have that makes a real difference to your business.
This article will dive into how you can gather quality travel data and utilize it to make smarter business decisions. But first, let's get those stakeholders on board with the idea.

What is travel management data and why does it matter?

If your employees are traveling regularly, there’s a gold mine of data sitting at your fingertips. Knowing how to collect that data and what to do with it can be a game-changer for your travel strategy.
Once you’ve convinced leadership of the importance of collecting your travel data, you can start to assign the tools and time to make the most of it.

How can data help travel managers with corporate travel?

Travel data can help your business to make a lot of critical decisions. Outside of travel operations, it can help with:
  • Understanding your product’s emerging customer profiles
  • Identifying new geographical demographics or potential go-to-market destinations
  • Employee acquisition and retention
Let’s explore four ways travel data can specifically help your travel management process.

1. How does travel data improve policy compliance?

Compliance presents challenges when it comes to employee travel, however, it's essential for your duty of care, risk management, and accurate reimbursement processes. If your travel manager doesn't have a clear overview of what each employee is booking, you won't know an employee is out of policy until it's too late.
Travel data, and travel management services , addresses this challenge. Using data correctly identifies repeat offenders, as well as any steps within your employee's travel booking process that need fine-tuning or clarification.
For example, Perk’s booking feature can help improve your travel compliance rates to 100%. By combining an integrated travel policy with automated approval flows , our platform will show your travelers what’s in and out of policy.
So, in case a traveler wants to book something outside of company policy, they’ll need approval from their manager first. Voila, you have compliance.

2. How does travel data reduce costs?

Travel data enables businesses to minimize travel expenses and optimize travel spend through predictive analysis—the use of historical data patterns to forecast future spending trends and identify cost-saving opportunities.
A travel management platform like Perk can digest months, even years,’ worth of expense data into one digestible overview. By doing so, you can identify which departments or employees are spending the most and if that spend is necessary.
This expense management initiative can help organize your travel budget, save on travel costs, and make sure you're getting a return on investment for your business trips.
You can also spot booking trends and practice benchmarking spend goals. For example, if your employees tend to be booking one particular hotel chain, perhaps there’s a loyalty rewards program that you can latch on to, save costs, and get better benefits for your employees staying there. cancellations
Additionally, predictive analysis examines booking trends. Is there a certain time of year your business is statistically traveling more? If so, you identify whether there's a way to distribute your travel better and, therefore, your spend. Or, budget accordingly for the next calendar year.

3. How does travel data build more efficient processes?

AI-driven travel data and booking tools learn from the data they have. In travel, they highlight common destinations, your most popular transport, or booking types. This informs your travel acquisition strategy and helps streamline policies for these locations in the future.
Efficiency doesn’t stop there though. Handling data well can also help streamline your tax process at the end of each financial year—at least within your global business travel spend. For example, Perk allows your travel or finance team to generate reports based on recoverable VAT.
Say goodbye to last-minute scrambling to get taxes in on time and potentially missing an opportunity to reclaim on business travel. Smooth out the process and be as prepared as can be when the time comes.

4. How does travel data contribute to greener travel?

A significant benefit to using data for corporate travel is the positive impact on your carbon footprint.
For example, Perk’s Green Trip solution provides an overview of each tonne of CO₂ emissions for every business trip a company makes with 100% accuracy. The solution then suggests a financial contribution to a carbon-offsetting initiative per tonne on each future booking you make.
With 75% of businesses being able to earn money from investing in green technology, data can be a part of that investment you make for your company.
Plus, visibility on your carbon footprint can give your business and your employees’ peace of mind when traveling, knowing the business is doing its part to offset travel miles.

Start using travel data to positively influence your business

Business travel becomes smarter with data. When travel managers have access to quality, digestible, and actionable data, they start positively impacting your business travel strategy as well as the business on the whole.

Businesses using travel management platforms versus consumer booking sites:

Travel management platform
Consumer booking sites
Centralized, accurate data collection
Fragmented, incomplete data
Real-time compliance tracking
No policy enforcement
Consolidated expense reporting
Manual expense reconciliation
Negotiated corporate rates
Standard consumer pricing
Businesses that don't use a corporate travel management platform or travel management company (TMC) and are still booking travel on consumer sites struggle to gather accurate data, representing a missed opportunity.
If your business is trying to become more data-minded and looking at cost savings, remaining agile, granting more autonomy, and giving back to the world in the process, a business travel management platform may be the perfect fit for you.
Let your travel management reporting tool collect valuable data for you and receive detailed reporting on everything we’ve mentioned above—in real-time.
The travel industry is ever-changing, but data can help you get a firmer grip on things. Customize your reports to show the data you need, share them with those who can benefit from them, and keep improving your business with one source of truth, one day, one trip at a time.

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