Why Companies Should Use Corporate Travel Software

Despite recent events, corporate travel is still an essential business need. As a more than $500 billion industry, it helps companies serve customers and drive employee health and safety as well as cost savings. About 90% of professionals believe travel is essential to their company, and the statistics back them up. For the average business, every dollar spent on travel translates to an extra $9.50 worth of revenue and $2.90 increase in profit.  

For all its importance, however, managing corporate travel can be a vexing challenge. Employees have trouble finding flights and hotels that fit their needs. CFOs want to save money but don’t know where to look. And corporate travel managers, who already struggle to enforce corporate policies, need to know where their travelers are, now more than ever, to provide proper duty of care and help ensure their health and safety.  

Corporate travel software can solve each of these problems and more. At Deem, we’ve worked closely with our customers and travelers to understand what’s really needed. Our software platform, Etta, was designed for humans and the way they use technology. We’ve made it easier for travel managers to create, customize, and manage travel programs while making the booking process smoother and more intuitive for employees.

An outdated travel management program can cost companies up to $12,000 per employee per year. To help companies control travel expenses, Etta presents preferred content to travelers and prevents out-of-policy bookings. It minimizes fraud with our virtual payments feature. And Etta integrates with nearly every travel expense platform, helping you track spending and improve forecasting.

Here are the four key reasons why your company should invest in corporate travel software:

Save time

One of the biggest advantages that come with using corporate travel software is that it saves time. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Nearly four out of five employees tie their job satisfaction to their business travel experience, and many complain that booking travel is a laborious process.  

When companies use Etta, powered by Deem, booking travel ceases to be such a time-consuming process. Combining a customized program with supercharged searches using Google’s ITA search engine, Etta presents the most relevant, in-policy results first when users log in. Now, the average booking time goes from an average of 45 minutes to just three.

Save money

Business travel is a gargantuan industry: Travel spending peaked in 2019 at roughly $1.28 trillion. Because of the pandemic, travel spending in 2020 was down to $504 billion — still no small number.  

While business travelers make up just 12% of airlines’ passengers, they’re more lucrative and account for 75% of airlines’ profit. According to Global Business Travel Association’s (GBTA’s) BTI Outlook, corporate travel spending is expected to increase by 21% by the end of 2021 and projected to reach $1.4 trillion by the end of 2024.

The Business Travel News Corporate Travel Index stated that businesses spend roughly $1,425 for every employee they send on a business trip. Savvy CFOs know that there is plenty of money to be saved on corporate travel, but many don’t know where to look.

Corporate travel software can aggregate prices from myriad sources to make sure that companies never overpay for travel. More impressively, Deem helps corporations take advantage of their status as bulk buyers. Our automated ticket exchange feature allows travel managers to track and optimize all their unused tickets. Cancelled trips can be converted into refunds or vouchers, and notifications make sure that hotel and airline credits get used before they expire.

Compliance

A recent business travel market report revealed that 40% of businesses still don’t have a travel policy, and chances are it’s because these rules get poor reviews from employees. Nearly a third of workers report not complying with their employer’s travel policies, and 27% say that those policies are mismanaged.

Corporate travel software allows companies to institute common sense rules while avoiding the labyrinthine paperwork and management headaches that traditionally come with new policy.

Businesses can proactively embed travel policies into the Etta booking software, so the only options travelers see are those that are pre-approved. This ensures that the wrong things are never booked in the first place. Expense reporting can be filed digitally to make the back-end process smooth and accessible, something that 80% of employees prefer.

Convenience

It goes without saying that corporate travel software is, in fact, very convenient to use. 57% of travelers prefer making bookings all from one place, and the Etta travel platform, available for both desktop and mobile devices, does that. As a single trip booking and management solution for corporate travel, Etta users can book flights, hotels, and cars all at once, for any destination in the U.S. and more than 60 countries.  

All trip segments can also be booked and managed from the Etta mobile app. As shown in a GBTA white paper, not all corporate travel booking platforms offer that. In fact, about one in five do not offer mobile corporate booking solutions for flights or hotels, and about 25% don’t offer mobile booking for rental cars.

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The Etta platform also facilitates less common forms of travel, such as rail transit and chauffeur service, allowing travelers to choose from more than 5,000 ground transportation providers. And the award-winning Travel SafetyCheck feature helps travelers know the safety protocols from Covid-19 as well as other safety and wellness information in the booking flow when they need it most, so they can make the best decisions for themselves and their business.

Travel booked through Etta syncs automatically to your travelers’ calendars. Email and mobile reminders help to ensure that flights and meetings are never missed again. Finally, travelers using Etta for mobile can access the software’s accessibility features, so every person has more of what they need to be as successful as possible while traveling.

Conclusion

Everyone wins when companies adopt corporate travel software. Travelers make bookings faster, managers set travel programs and policies more easily, and C-suite executives can save their companies money. It’s no wonder that our corporate clients report a 95% traveler adoption rate once they partner with Deem.

To learn more about the Etta corporate travel software platform, schedule a free demonstration here.  

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