More choice and booking channels can mean you lose control of business travel costs. With Allstar and Roomex, you can take back control.
When it comes to booking business travel, the options for how to do it are nearly as numerous as the destinations.
Some bigger firms may still have a travel manager who keeps strict control on what is booked, where and by whom, but increasingly the digital age has resulted in employees often having to sort their own journeys and accommodation out.
Unmanaged business travel can have its benefits. Employees can hunt out the best deals from wherever they can, there is a lot of flexibility, and the potential for cost saving by not using third parties to book, or not having a dedicated employee.
But those advantages can also be major drawbacks too. Employees might not be getting the best deals – and in fact - flexibility can also make booking chaotic and a bit of a free-for-all. And having no oversight means no data, and no control. How do you know if you’re getting the best deals and services, or employees are spending what they should, if you’re not measuring and managing it?
With Allstar and Roomex, you get the best of all worlds: opportunities for cost saving, control and flexibility, and our research from 233 customers, with variable levels of completion for some questions, shows that these are priorities for businesses buying travel. It found:
Location (76%) and price (80%) are the two most important facets of travel followed by employee preference (32%) while booking accommodation.
Most challenges managers and employees face while booking travel are in finding a hotel within their budget (58%), with 44% concerned they, and their business, spend too much time browsing different websites for accommodation and travel.
Nearly one quarter (23%) struggle with the amount of accommodation choice, while one in five (20%) have a challenge keeping track of travel spend and budget.
Almost half (45%) think it is important to have sustainability in their travel programme.
Only half (48%) stated being satisfied with their organisation’s current travel and expense management process. The opinions of the other 52% were either neutral, or dissatisfied.
Allstar and Roomex address all these issues bringing all hotel bookings and payments into one platform, searching over 1.2 million hotels from 35 sources to help users find the right accommodation, as well as allowing users to implement their own unique policies and controls, and manage their payments in one, consolidated invoice.
Added to which, travel purchases such as food, parking and WIFI made through Roomex can be put on the Allstar Plus card at the point of booking, keeping control over spend. Managers can also put in place controls so employees can’t book accommodation or pay for expenses beyond their allowed level, nor have to pay out of their own pocket and reclaim later – win-win!
Using the Roomex platform with Allstar Plus gives you a detailed breakdown of all travel spend with actionable insights, analytics and booking histories, giving a clearer view of what has been spent and where, as well as providing the information you need to help with future travel expense policy and cost decisions.
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