The benefits of Corporate Travel vs. Modern Communication

Corporate Travel will always be important for a variety of business travellers. Regardless of modern-day communication and its capabilities, the face-to-face interaction will never match.

The way we communicate with each other has changed drastically over the last 20 years. Before the time of emails and mobile telephones, if you wanted to send a message to a friend or loved one to the other side of the world, it could take several days before it arrived at its destination.  Thanks to the internet and mobile technology, a message can be sent within seconds.

Now it is possible to have a face-to-face conversation with one person, or a whole group of people, in New York and the other, party, in London. Communication with others defines how we live our lives and the way we communicate. Technology is constantly evolving as new methods of communication are becoming available.

There is no doubt that modern communication has drastically improved the way we communicate in our personal lives. It has also drastically changed the way we communicate in our professional lives.

Employers now manage their team via email. Employees can now work at home and a business can hold an important meeting via ‘conference call’.

While the advantages of conference calls are that, a business can save money as well as reducing their carbon footprint.

However, the reliance on video calls and emails can remove the personal touch that attending a meeting or a conference in person has. If you arrange all the important details and transactions with your International partners via email and telephone, you miss the chance to build important professional relationships that can only be achieved by meeting face-to-face.

Other aspects of world business would be hard to arrange via conference call such as trade missions, where it is important for people from different companies and governments to meet face to face.

Many businesses would like to travel more frequently; however, with the rising cost of fuel prices this becomes more difficult. A corporate travel agency can help to negotiate an affordable price to mostly anywhere in the world.

The Importance of Corporate Travel Management

Planning a business trip is a serious undertaking. Unless you’ve got a trained professional within the organisation, there’s a huge room for error. Without proper planning and industry knowledge it’s easy for travel expenditure to exceed expectations. That’s why there’s no shame in turning to a corporate travel management agency to help plan your trip for you.

Figures last year revealed that travel and expenses costs are the second highest annual controllable expense. Trying to keep these costs down should be essential to any business. With careful planning and the correct decisions these costs can be cut significantly. A corporate travel management agency makes these decisions and handles this planning for you, relieving hours of stress, not to mention lowering travel costs.

A good agency will agree with a set level of service which will then be maintained throughout the entire process. This often involves keeping the client up-to-date with the goings-on in the travel industry including the latest offers, any new routes to reduce costs or reward schemes.

It’s also important that a corporate travel management agency analyses your firm’s travel spending from beginning to end – this allows them to discover any areas where costs can be cut. Making your money go further should be one of the most important objectives of any agency. Finally a good business travel agency will treat you like an individual – tailoring their service to meet your needs.

Picking the right agency for you is guaranteed to make all the difference. A good corporate travel management agency can save you money, time, and effort.

Benefits of Business Class Travel

Travel is a time-consuming process for all business professionals, however, it is essential. There are occasions when economy travel will not do!  Many businesses operate in a time sensitive manner.  A business professional must be fully capable of conducting communications whilst being mobile by using: mobile smart phones, laptops, notebooks and mobile 3G Internet devices. Travel constraints can have such a significant impact on productivity – business class travel is a highly noticeable upgrade from economy class, where the quality of seating, food and drinks and other amenities is better.

Corporate Travel Benefits

Business class is available on commercial airlines and rail. Additional extras such as: direct AC adaptors, more leg room and reclining chairs makes travel more comfortable and also provides the opportunity for business professionals to work efficiently. In economy class it is inevitable you will encounter many more restrictions, frustrations and interruptions. Due to the extra capacity of people in a confined space.

If you are on a Transatlantic flight,  you will certainly encounter jet lag – this culprit will make you feel lethargic and especially if you are delivering a key meeting or presentation. Although, travelling in style has its price, in the long-term you will feel refreshed and ready to encounter all challenges on your trip. Good corporate travel provides a great way to ensure that you get the best deal for travel requirements.

Why Choose A Good Travel Management?

A good travel management provider will have a wealth of experience with tour operators and are capable of reducing the price of your travel deal.  Regardless if you are travelling by rail or road, a good corporate travel operator will assist you in every aspect of your journey.  In a time of crisis, a reputable business travel provider will send alerts to you quickly and will create a contingency plan.

Delays or circumstances out of human control occasionally occur – planning for such unfortunate events will make your business more productive and less stressful in times of uncertainty. Your trustworthy business travel management provider will a book hotel room for you if your flight is cancelled.  To summarise, choose a great travel management provider that is proactive and dynamic.

Corporate Travel Management – News 23/02/2011

Another week, another set of news from the corporate travel management industry. This week we’re looking at the news that Mercian Travel has seen an increase in profits over the past year. The company recorded a 36 percent increase in revenue from the corporate travel management area of the business. From January 2010-2011 the company saw profits of £1.1m, whereas in the same period of time last year the company saw profits of £1.5m. In February 2011 the Hull based corporate travel management agency purchased Mercian Travel, suggesting a direct correlation between the two.

The corporate travel management area of the business was indeed the most successful. However other areas of the company showed steady progress, with the bridge and bowling tours plus retail holiday sectors producing £4m. The corporate travel management agency’s own Abi Hyslop stated that the reason for the firm’s success is largely down to their investment into business development and due to the firm joining UNIGLOBE Travel International – the world’s largest single brand corporate travel management company. The UNIGLOBE partnership granted Mercian Travel access to lower fair prices from over 65 airlines.

Mercian Travel’s business development manager, Abi Hyslop, spoke to TheBusinessDesk regarding the success of the firm, stating that “Joining UNIGLOBE has enabled us to offer greater value to our existing clients and as a result, some decided to increase their spend with us. These two initiatives are what have allowed us to drive the business forward over the past year.”

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Travel Management – Industry News 16/02/2011

Here at the corporate travel management blog we think it’s vital to keep up to date with the latest news from the travel management industry. This week we’re looking at HRG, one of the more well known names in the travel management industry.

HRG has seen a decline recently in their European business, over the past 4 months. At first glance you’d expect this to be bad news for the company, and potentially the travel management industry. However they’re stating that revenue and spending is basically the same as a year ago. HRG believe that the reason for this is that a growth in the Asian market is offsetting the decline in Europe.

The travel management company stated “Despite the uncertain macroeconomic environment, the board remains confident that HRG will deliver underlying profit before tax for the full year in line with expectations.”

HRG’s very own Chief Executive, David Radcliffe, also stated “HRG has demonstrated the robustness of its business model which is underpinned by our ability to help clients maximise the value of their corporate travel budgets.”

HRG’s financial year will finish in March 2012, so we’ll find out then if the travel management company is having troubles. From our observations it looks like the travel management industry is still going strong, despite the current economical situation. Be sure to let us know in the comments below if there’s any recent news from the travel management industry which you’d like us to cover.

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Travel Management – Our Top Links

Finding the right Travel Management agency for you can be a daunting task. Here at the travel management uk blog we’ve decided to try help you with this process. We’ve put together a list of our top 5 useful links for all your travel management needs.

• http://www.yell.com – this is a pretty obvious one. Yell is the yellow pages of the internet. It’s one of the best sites you can use for discovering businesses. Using Yell you’ll be able to search for travel management providers, and even drill them down to an exact city.
• http://www.freeindex.co.uk/ – FreeIndex is an extremely useful resource for finding which travel management agency might be right for you. They offer user reviews for business, allowing you to find the ideal one. With over 345,000 businesses it should be easy to find a travel management agency for you.
• http://www.touchhull.com/ – Here we’ve got another business directory. Touch Local have separate sites for your location, for example we’ve linked the TouchHull site. Be sure to check for travel management agencies in your area.
• http://www.bizwiki.co.uk/ – BizWiki is used by various other business directories on the internet to pull their data from. Users can submit their own businesses, and information, which is then moderated on a regular basis by a dedicated team. Be sure to search for travel management.
• http://www.good-travel.co.uk – Finally we have our personal recommended Travel Management provider – Good Travel. We’ve had a fantastic experience with Good Travel in the past and couldn’t recommend them enough.

We hope that these links are a useful resource for those looking for the right travel management agency for them. If you have any other travel management links you’d like to see us add to the post, be sure to post them in the comments below!

Travel Management – History of Good Travel

Here at the Corporate Travel Management blog we like to be linked in with the travel management industry. That’s why we thought we’d put together a post about the history of one of the leading UK travel management companies – Good Travel. Good Travel and their sister company Mercian Travel have a lengthy history of providing travel management services to travellers for many years.

Their parent company, John Good Shipping, was actually established back in 1833 in Hull as a ships chandler before they began to branch out into steam ship cargo services in the Baltics. Due to visits to the region by Ambrose Good he was convinced that there was a future for tourism and travel management in Finland. From this he then started the ‘passenger department’ and began to organise the very first travel guide to Finland that was written entirely in English!

Despite the two world wars, this passenger department continued to grow. With the advent of air travel in the 1940’s John Good & Sons Ltd became registered as an IATA Travel Agency in 1946 – this is a license which is still relevant today and is the longest established within the UK. A few years later there was a notable rise in the popularity of ‘packaged holidays’ during the 1950’s and 60’s, which resulting in Good Travel to start organising tours throughout Europe, alongside offering other traditional travel management services.

By this point the business was growing rapidly, with a number of offices in the East Yorkshire area. During the 1970’s and 1980’s this trend continued, causing Good Travel to become a leading independent travel management agency. However due to industry changes and a refocus from within the entire John Good Group, Good Travel saw a move to focus on corporate travel management in the late 90’s and early 2000’s.

In 2005 a brand new management team was brought on board to refocus the business goals of Good Travel. From this Good Travel evolved into Good Travel Management, offering a range of corporate travel management services. This change in focus resulted in a huge change in sales from £2 million to £6 million!

Since this time Good Travel Management have purchased Mercian Travel – an organisation which has provided specialist corporate travel services for over 40 years, including Trade Missions and bespoke leisure travel services. Now with a team of over 30 members and an impressive turnover approaching £10 million, the Good Travel Group are doing better than ever. Good Travel Management continue to be one of the UK’s most respected providers of travel management services.

Corporate Travel Management – Turkey

One of the UK’s leading corporate travel management agencies, Good Travel Management, have joined forced with the Hull & Humber Chamber of Commerce to run a trade mission to Turkey in May this year. However before the event the leading uk corporate travel management agency is running a seminar on January 24th titled “Doing Business With Turkey”.

They’ve got a great line up of guests which will be available for consultation after their talks. The line up is as follows:

• Alan Platt, Managing Director of John Good Shipping – with years and years of experience working in Turkey, Izmir and Instanbul, Alan will be discussing a range of topics including the fantastic opportunities for corporate travel management that Turkey Provide. He will also be discussing his positive, and negative, business experiences in the country.
• Kirk Akdemir, CEO of AA Global – born in Instanbul, Kirk has gained many years of experience in both the UK and Turkish business cultures. He’ll be discussing the differences between both cultures, and what you should expect when operating your corporate travel management business there.
• CEO of Turkish-British Chamber of Commerce – will be chatting about the opportunities for trade and corporate travel management in Turkey, the key sectors in the country, and how to get your goods into the market.

The seminar will give  those who’re interested in corporate travel management and trade, the chance to hear from the industry experts about the wide range of opportunities in the country for UK companies. Anyone who visits will also be able to network with fellow international traders and corporate travel management industry members. To find out more about the event visit – http://www.good-travel.co.uk

Corporate Travel Management – Air & Rail

Good Travel Management are one of the UK’s most respected independent names in corporate travel management. With some of the industry’s leading travel professionals who have years of experience, their teams can guarantee that you benefit from the most cost effective solutions for your travel needs.

Good Travel Management offer corporate travel management services for air travel. They guarantee to get you the most value from your air travel spend by providing:

• Flexibility – They hold provisional reservations in most cases, allowing their cleints to plan meetings before committing to discounted fares.
• Unbiased Advice – Because Good Travel Management are independent they’re able to recommend what’s best for their clients.
• Company negogiated fares – Good Travel Management are also able to negogiate specific fares for your company with the airlines which you use regularly.
• Negogiated UNIGLOBE fares for all of the world’s major airlines, including Low Cost, Economy, Premium Economy, Business and First.
• Spend Management – Good Travel Management will regularly assess your air travel spend to ensure they provide the best value for your company.
• Key Route Benchmarking – to guarantee your year on year transaction costs are completely visible, and controllable.

Good Travel Management also offer corporate travel management services for rail travel. They are an appointed agent for all UK rail companies, and as a result are able to provide a full range of ticket types including low cost fares. They use the latest in corporate travel management technology to ensure their consultants can provide a fast, effective rail ticket. Their systems allow them to:

• Provide booking via telephone, e-mail or online.
• Provide accurate company travel spend information including routing, fare used, date and name of traveler.
• Provide small credit-card sized tickets for ease of use on the London Underground.
• Assess if cheaper fares are available through travelling at alternate times.
• A variety of delivery means for your documents – onsite ticket printing, fast ticket, postal or courier delivery.
• Pre-booking whether you’ll be seated around a table, specific seat numbers and even the direction of your travel.
• Provide an instant comparison to air and road travel with accurate CO2 emissions data.

If you’d like to know more about the corporate travel management services on offer from Good Travel Management be sure to visit their site at – http://www.good-travel.co.uk

Corporate Travel Management – Emergency Assistance

Travel plans can change at any moment. That’s why it’s essential you choose a corporate travel management company which has a support line available 24 hours a day, every day. This becomes even more vital when you’re travelling overseas, with time-differences causing havoc if a support line is only available for set hours.

This is why Good Travel Management have an emergency assistance helpline available 24 hours a day. Their Emergecy Assistance Team can alter travel plans, issue new tickets and review your itinerary – all it takes is one phone call. The team is also able to send details of any travel changes to your authorized company contact. All of this is essential to meet your corporate travel management needs.

They also offer e-mail news alerts which keep travellers up to date with the latest news, such as:

• Implications and advice for any travel delays from serious accidents or weather.
• Any chances in Government travel advice.
• Any changes needed to meet visa and passport requirements for certain countries.
• Potential upcoming strike action in any country, by airports, airlines or ground transportation staff.

As one of the UK’s leading corporate travel management companies, Good Travel Management pride themselves in taking a pro-active approach to managing the potential travel consequences of a major accident or incident, regardless of the country. They have some of the leading corporate travel management computer software available allowing them to track and identify all travelers in need of assistance. They then work with them to ensure any required changes to their travel plans are made, whilst also making sure their company is kept constantly aware of the situation as it develops. They even allow their traveller tracking tools to be accessed by the client, for full transparency.

If you’d like to know more about corporate travel management emergency assistance, or Good Travel Management, visit – http://www.good-travel.co.uk/