The Search

The first step for most SMEs when making business travel arrangements is the search tab in their internet browser. A recent study by Google into the traveller’s road to decision indicates that around 69% of business travellers begin researching online before deciding where or how they want to travel.

The point of online research is of course to find the best possible deals on flights, accommodation and ground transport in order to minimise the cost and maximise the efficiency of your business trip. But are you actually achieving these outcomes?

The Cost Saving Myth

There is a commonly held belief among many SMEs that you can get the best prices by using the internet to book directly with airlines, hotels and ground transport providers. This process, however, takes time – a resource that is not only precious but often unaccounted for as an expense. Regardless of who’s tasked with making the travel arrangements, it can take hours or even days to comb the web for the best rates available.

The Booking Process Time

On average, it takes anywhere between 5 to 15hrs to complete the booking process starting from search all the way to post-booking amendments. Now take a second and multiple the number of hours by $20 (the average receptionist wage in Australia)

We hate to be the barer of bad news but yes, you are paying at least $100 more than you think per trip. The longer and more complex your itinerary, the more time it takes to complete the buying process and the larger your additional cost will be.

The Solution

The reality is, business travel booking is a process and does take time. Travel agencies still have to do the same work. However, they have the knowledge and resources to quickly sift through details – and they do it on their time, not yours!

If you factor in the extra time and money it takes to make last-minute changes to business travel arrangements, it can often end up costing more to do it yourself than it would to engage abusiness travel specialist.

You’ll still get the best rates on things like airfares and hotel rooms, you just won’t have to find them yourself. This saves you time and time=money if you’re at work. If you’re at home, it’s even worse because time now equals precious family moments!

A corporate travel specialist will help you to consolidate your different travel requirements so that details of your air travel, accommodation, ground transport and any other services you may require can all be found in one place. They also provide a single point of contact for you and any other travellers within your business in case of an emergency or if you need support while you’re away. That’s right, no more waiting on hold with an airline for 2 hours after your flight has been unexpectedly cancelled.

Keep in mind that corporate travel management providers also have established relationships with airlines, hotel chains and ground transportation companies, so there is every chance that they will be able to use their connections to get you a better deal than you would have found on the internet anyway.

If you feel like you spend too much time staring at airfare and accommodation booking pages,  contact us today to find out how you can get that time back.

There’s a good chance you’re reading this because you own, operate or are employed by an SME and you engage in some form of business travel. If this sounds like you, you may be asking yourself why do SMEs have such high comparative expenses when it comes to business travel? Furthermore, what can SMEs do to reduce costs?

According to the SME Association of Australia, 97% of actively trading businesses in Australia are SMEs. On top of that, SMEs employ roughly 70% of the Australian workforce.

As an SME, your business and its offerings are valuable and unique. We believe the solution to your travel management needs is just as unique, and that’s how your business travel should be approached.

Let’s look at one of the key issues stopping SMEs from reducing costs

Business travel these days is predominantly referred to as Corporate Travel. Businesses who frequently engage in corporate travel often minimise expenses by engaging a corporate travel management firm. But what if you’re not a corporation? What if you don’t travel as frequently as a corporation? What if you don’t spend $5 million per year on travel expenses?

In an industry which houses the word ‘corporate’ in its name, it can be a bit daunting to engage corporate travel services if you don’t consider yourself a large ‘corporation’. The problem is corporate travel providers are designed to deliver services that reduce costs. Granted some do a better job than others but we don’t want you to give up if you don’t wish to outsource this service.

We’re dedicating our blog to helping Australian SMEs get the best possible value out of their business travel spend, whether that be through reducing costs or increasing your efficiency to achieve more valuable outcomes.

We’ll be covering travel topics such as:

• Travel reward and loyalty programmes
• Accommodation and ground transport
• Claiming travel expenses once you’ve returned home
• Leisure travel – saving on holidays once the business trips are over

To kick things off next week we’ll be taking a look at the travel research and buying process, including how SMEs can maximise that most valuable of resources – time.

If you’d like to know more, contact us directly for additional information on how Australian SMEs can reduce the cost of their business travel.

It’s been a month since we launched our new Online Booking System and we’d like to share some case studies that we think you might find helpful … especially when you see how much our clients saved simply by using the new system!

Flights Case Study

Objective

Book a flight on Etihad Airways from Sydney to Cairo 3 days prior to travel in June

Situation

With a last minute booking, the best price the client could obtain from travel agents was $2,300.

Outcome

Through our new online system, we delivered a $500 saving for our new client. The only difference between the two flights was an additional stopover that added 1 extra hour to the whole journey.

Car Hire Case Study

Objective

Hire a car for 5 days in London for July.

Situation

After shopping directly on major car hire websites and getting a quote from one travel agent, the best rate obtained for was £700 for a VW Passat Sedan.

Outcome

Through our new system, we delivered a £440 saving (approx $770) for our client. The only difference was the client was able to get this significantly cheaper rate for an A-Class Mercedes Benz instead. A trade-off he was happy with to say the least.

But most importantly for you …

Not only does our new system provide great value, our award-winning customer service team is still here for you when you need offline support.

Click here to try our new Online Booking System, and bookmark our site today for next time you need to book travel!

It doesn’t matter whether you’re on a business trip or a holiday, public wifi networks can be a godsend when it comes to accessing the internet on your smartphone without incurring those outrageously expensive overseas data-roaming charges.

But while finding a free public wifi network while travelling can feel akin to finding an oasis when you’re lost in the desert, it’s important to recognize that open wifi networks, especially in large public spaces like airports or shopping centres, can be incredibly vulnerable to hackers who are looking to steal sensitive personal data from unsuspecting users.

Why is this so you ask? Well, the same thing that makes public wifi so useful also makes them dangerous – they are insecure, open and available to anyone. Generally when you use your wifi network at home or in the office, your network traffic and online activity is protected from unwanted eyes by encryption technology which works based on your network password.

The same goes for hotel wifi networks which are available to guests but are protected by a pass code based on either your guest details or a daily code-change. When you connect to a wifi network in an airport, shopping centre or coffee shop, these networks are often unencrypted and do not require password entry for usage, leaving them vulnerable to snooping by opportunistic hackers and data thieves.

In these situations any tech-savvy cyber cowboy can view every unencrypted web page you’re viewing at the same time as you are. Even if the network IS password protected, it’s most likely a shared password which can easily be obtained by asking nicely at the information desk. We know, quite a scary thought isn’t it.
There are plenty of other good reasons why using sensitive data on a public wifi network is a dangerous road to travel, but we don’t want to bore you by getting too ‘techy’. Instead, here’s a quick list of things you should NEVER do while using a public wifi network.

1.  Online banking or shopping
2. Reading or sending sensitive work emails
3. Opening sensitive attachments within email
4. Accessing cloud storage application which contain sensitive information
5. Entering sensitive information which gives details of your identity (passport details, driver’s license information, credit card information, health care information)
6. Logging into work servers and/or systems remotely

Think we’ve missed something? Why not write to us on Facebook, we’d love to hear your feedback! Alternatively if you’d like to discuss ways to improve your business travel activities, contact us today.

You’re no longer on your own when you book online.

With JC Travel Professionals, you can rest assured that our offline award-winning customer service is still available when you book online. Just visit the contact us page clearly located in the top right hand corner.

What’s more, for contracted SME’s, non-profit organisations, sporting organisations and other corporates, we offer white label versions of our booking tool that incorporate your destination requirements and your contracted pricing.

For larger corporates, our premium booking tool also offers the ability to dynamically enforce your corporate travel policy at an individual traveller level.

About our Online Booking System

You can go online anytime, compare rates and tailor your own itinerary. You can contact us if there are any issues, or if you’re stuck. You can book airfares, accommodation, travel insurance, car hire, motorhome and cruises all on one website!

You can say goodbye to biased search results. With JC Travel Professionals, you are shown whatever airfares and flights are available. We don’t internally filter out certain airlines or intentionally promote certain airfares.

Service Highlights

Flights
Our international flights are highly competitive because we don’t have any biased algorithms that favours certain airlines over others, as is often the case with online booking websites.
Hotels
With a global range, you can shop by city, location or even landmark for some of the lowest prices in the market, and for last minute deals for a broad range of property types (hostels to luxury 5 star resorts).
Car Hire
Our system searches for local specials as well as standard rates for all primary and many secondary car hire companies, to deliver some of the lowest rates in the industry.
Cruises
Forget the “enquire button.” With our system, you can book many cruises instantly at very competitive prices, and including last minute specials!
Motorhome
Why not explore your destination in style? Choose from a variety of sizes in thirty countries!
Insurance
Our tool allows practically any nationality to obtain travel insurance to any country at a highly competitive price.

Bookmark our site now so when you need to book online, you know you won’t be on your own.

If you ask most small business owners “what’s the one thing you want more of?” you’re likely to find that most people give the same answer – time. No matter how long you choose to spend at work, with your family, or even sleeping there are still only 24 hours in each day.

It’s issues regarding time, or lack thereof, that also present the most significant concerns for SME business owners when it comes to business travel activity. Not only do you need to spend days, weeks or maybe even months in a different physical location to your business, but you also need to take time before departing to prepare yourself for your trip and prepare your business for your absence. And to think that we haven’t even mentioned the time you’ll need to book your transport and accommodation or organise your itinerary yet.

Luckily, when it comes to preparing for your business trip and making your travel arrangements, engaging a corporate travel management firm can play a vital role in helping you use your time as efficiently as possible so that your time is spent preparing yourself and your staff for your trip, not preparing your itinerary.

Here are some of the ways your corporate travel manager can help you ‘wind back the clock’ and maximise the efficiency of your business travel prep:

Single point of contact

Whether it be through a customized online booking system or a dedicated account manager, having a single point of contact for all your corporate travel needs ensures that you don’t need to waste time dealing with multiple different companies to arrange your ground transport, flights, accommodation and car hire bookings.

Furthermore, if you experience a setback or require assistance once you’ve begun your travels, having a single point of contact eliminates the possibility of you having to spend hours on hold with different airlines, hotels and car hire companies in the event that you need to change your travel plans.

Knowledge and expertise

We all know how easy it can be to get lost in a sea of ‘deals’, ‘savings’ and ‘coupon codes’ when using online comparison sights to search for the best airfare or accommodation deals. You begin your journey on one webpage, then before you know it you’ve lost 3 hours of your afternoon and are on a completely different website to the one where you began. And you have even booked your hotel rooms yet.

The great thing about corporate travel managers is that they already know where to look to get the best deals for you based on your preferences, where you need to go and how long you’re staying for. Even if they need to spend a little time searching themselves, that’s their job and they’re great at what they do, so chances are good that they’ll be able to do it a lot faster than you could. Having the knowledge and expertise that comes with years of experience can make the travel booking process faster, more efficient and more cost effective for you and your organisation.

 Holding tickets and handling charge backs

Due to the nature of their work, corporate travel managers often have relationships with industry partners that have been built over years and countless phone calls and meetings. Whether they be with certain hotel chains, airlines or even credit card companies, taking advantage of the professional relationships that your corporate travel manager has taken years to establish can save you huge amounts of time when it comes to doing things like putting paid travel tickets on hold or handling a credit card charge-back.

Saving time when it comes to business travel preparation comes down to recognising what is important that you do yourself and what can be handled by an extra set of hands. If you find that you’re constantly short of time when you’re preparing to embark on a business trip, consider sitting down for a coffee with a corporate travel manager to discuss ways that you can boost the efficiency of your corporate travel activity. If you’d like to know more, or simply to arrange a chat, contact us today!

When it comes to organising and booking corporate travel with the aim of minimising overall costs, many SMEs take the ‘why pay someone to do something that I can easily do myself’ approach. This of course seems like that natural attitude to take, especially given the myriad of self-booking and product comparison websites that are available on the internet today.

But did you know that companies who engage a corporate travel management firm spend on average 10% less on their business travel activity than companies who choose to do it alone? That’s right, for every $1000 your company spends on travel, you could be spending $100 too much just by trying to save money through ‘cutting out the middle man’. How, we hear you ask, can corporate travel managers achieve such favourable outcomes for their clients?

Corporate travel agencies consistently achieve such cost savings in 2 main ways:

Upfront cost savings

Firstly, agencies can save their clients huge amounts of time by taking care of the whole travel booking process from search to purchase and making amendments. This begins the journey towards cost reduction since for most SMEs the old ‘time = money’ adage rings painfully true.

Next, the timing and methodology used to book your business travel arrangements is another area where an agency can make significant cost reductions for you and your business. Whereas you or your PA may not get around to booking your flights and accommodation until only a couple of days before you’re due to leave, an agency will work with you to reserve your bookings as soon as you know where you need to go and when. This can save you significant amounts of money as products like airfares and hotel rooms, when booked in advance, are significantly cheaper than when booked on short notice.

Moreover, agencies use their experience to undertake a much more efficient booking process than your average SME owner who occasionally travels for work. They’re also on the lookout for things like hidden luggage fees or exorbitant charges should you need to alter your travel dates.

Data-driven decision making

The other way that corporate travel agencies help their clients to achieve sustained cost savings in the area of travel expenditure is by providing detailed and data-driven travel spend reporting.

An accurate reporting process allows you and your business to see the areas where you’re already achieving great cost savings as well as the areas where you can alter your travel policy in order to make even larger savings on future travel activities. Once you’ve used your post-travel expense reports to find the right balance of spending vs. saving in different elements of your travel mix, you and your travel account manager can work these elements into your organisation’s Travel Policy.

We hope you’ve enjoyed learning a little bit more about the ways a corporate travel agency can save your business money both right now and for many years to come! If you’d like to discuss how to start a more cost-effective solution to manage your business travel, contact us today.