Managing corporate travel is about far more than just booking flights and hotels – even if both are still part of the process. From keeping employees safe on the road to controlling costs and ensuring travel policy compliance, there’s a lot to keep track of.
Fortunately, you don’t have to do it manually: there are plenty of tools for corporate travel management to help streamline the process and make sure your employees have a great experience whenever they travel for work.
We’ve compiled a list of nine tools for corporate travel management that’ll help you cover everything from travel booking and expense management to duty of care and policy compliance.
Ready to streamline corporate travel? Let’s get into it.
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Key takeaways:
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What is corporate travel management software?
Corporate travel management software is a category of tools designed to help businesses plan, book, track and manage work travel.
From booking flights and hotels to tracking expenses, enforcing travel policies and keeping employees safe on the road, corporate travel management tools cover every part of the business travel process.
Whether you need to manage bookings, control expenses or stay on top of duty of care responsibilities, there’s a corporate travel tool out there to fit your needs.
In short, if you haven’t explored what’s available on the corporate travel management market, now’s a great time to start.
Travel booking and management
Booking and managing corporate travel can be a headache. Luckily, you don’t have to do it manually: corporate travel platforms are here to streamline the entire process.
Corporate travel platforms centralise bookings, manage itineraries and much more. No more manually keeping track of schedules or approving bookings – corporate travel platforms take care of it all for you.
1. TravelPerk
Travelperk is the perfect solution for booking corporate travel and managing and reporting travel spend – all in one place. It makes booking flights, hotels, trains and car rentals easy whilst providing travel policy compliance tools and real-time expense tracking.
And here’s the best part: TravelPerk integrates with Pleo to make business trips plain sailing. Use your Pleo card to make your booking on TravelPerk, and automatically reconcile your expenses and invoices in one place – wherever you are.
2. Egencia
Egencia is a corporate travel management platform owned by American Express Global Business Travel. It offers global booking options, policy enforcement and analytics to help you streamline corporate travel.
The platform is designed for businesses and organisations of all sizes and offers a variety of features, including travel inventory, real-time report and traveller safety features – basically, everything you’d expect from a corporate travel platform.
3. Navan (formerly TripActions)
Navan (formerly TripActions) is a next-generation corporate travel management platform designed for businesses looking for flexibility, automation and real-time control over their corporate travel.
Navan combines a slick, user-friendly experience with tools for managing everything from booking trips for employees and execs to creating company travel programmes and arranging team offsites.
Expense management and corporate cards
When it comes to corporate travel, travel expenses are one of the most important things to keep track of. That’s what expense management is for.
Expense management is all about tracking, controlling and processing employee expenses. When it comes to travel, these could be for food and drinks, train tickets, hotel stays and so on – basically, any travel-related costs an employee incurs and needs to be reimbursed for.
We can’t mention expense management without mentioning corporate cards. They’re a key tool for controlling travel costs, improving compliance and simplifying expense reporting and reconciliation.
4. Pleo
With more than 1,480 five star reviews, Pleo is Europe’s most loved and trusted spend management platform. From daily business expenses to software subscriptions, Pleo gives you instant visibility of all your company spend.
Pleo’s smart company cards (physical and virtual) allow your employees to pay for flights, hotels, taxis, meals and other corporate travel expenses without having to pay out of pocket. And with tracking and easy categorisation of expenses, your finance team can keep up with travel expenses as they happen – no need to worry about overspending.
Looking for expense management tools? Check out our article: 9 tools to boost your expense management
Duty of care and traveller safety
When your employees travel for work, you want them to be well taken care of. That’s what duty of care tools are for: protecting the health, safety and well-being of your employees whilst they’re working – especially when travelling for business.
Basically, duty of care tools help you stay on top of where your people are, if they’re safe and how you can support them if something happens whilst they’re away.
5. International SOS
International SOS is one of the biggest, most established duty of care providers globally. It offers a wide range of medical, security and travel risk services for business, including 24/7 medical and security assistance hotlines, real-time risk alerts and employee tracking and location monitoring.
It’s particularly good for large, international businesses or organisations with complex employee safety needs or high-risk travel destinations.
6. Riskline
Riskline is a global travel risk intelligence company that focuses on real-time alerts and destination intelligence. It gives you detailed risk reports on countries, cities and regions and real-time alerts for events and incidents that could be a problem for your travelling employees – and it integrates seamlessly with travel management systems and apps.
It’s a great tool for companies that already have their own emergency services or insurance, but need up-to-date, accurate travel risk intel to guide travel decisions and keep travellers informed.
7. Safeture
Safeture is an app-based employee safety platform designed for real-time communication, risk management and location tracking – in short, it’s great for businesses with mobile or travelling workforces.
Along with its clean, intuitive user interface Safeture offers a range of features, including location-based employee tracking via mobile app and travel data, automated risk alerts and two-way mass communication and check-in tools.
Travel policy compliance
Another important part of corporate travel is making sure all travel is booked and managed within the company’s travel policy guidelines. These policies typically cover things like preferred booking channels, approved airlines, hotels and car services, budget limits and rules around upgrades, cancellations and reimbursements.
Travel policy compliance tools help enforce these rules automatically and flag any bookings that don’t comply with them.
8. Rocketrip
Rocketrip is a travel incentive and policy compliance tool that integrates with corporate travel booking systems like Egencia. It helps companies encourage travellers to book cost-efficient, in-policy trips by offering them personal rewards when they save against a pre-set trip budget.
Instead of rigidly enforcing policy through approval and restrictions, Rocketrip nudges travellers to make cost-effective, policy-aligned choices voluntarily – it’s a great way to boost compliance whilst keeping travellers engaged and motivated.
9. Tripkicks
Tripkicks is a business travel add-on for SAP Concur Travel and other booking tools that adds real-time traveler guidance, policy reminders and risk alerts during the booking process.
The tool helps reduce accidental non-compliance by giving travellers timely and relevant policy guidance as they book – without blocking options unnecessarily. As a bonus, it also enhances duty of care with health and safety notices.
What to look for in a corporate travel tool
The tools above cover a wide range of functions that’ll help you streamline corporate travel management and ensure your employees have a good experience when they travel for work.
When it comes to choosing corporate travel tools for your business, here are some essentials to consider:
- Ease of use: A corporate travel tool should make life easier – not harder. Look for solutions with an intuitive interface that’s easy to use for employees and finance teams alike.
- Seamless integrations: To avoid operational headaches, choose solutions that integrate well with your existing systems – whether it’s expense management software, HR tools, payroll or corporate card programmes.
- Flexibility and scalability: Look for solutions that can keep up with your business as it grows – e.g. by supporting international travel, remote teams and multicurrency payments.
- Good value for money: Make sure you get what you’re looking for. Compare the solutions’ pricing models with the value and features they offer and weigh the potential benefits against the cost.
In the end, it’s up to you and your business to decide what works best for you – but hopefully our list has given you a better idea of what’s out there.
Final thoughts
And there you are – a solid lineup of tools to help take the stress out of managing corporate travel. Whether you’re focused on keeping costs in check, making life easier for your travellers or staying on top of safety and policy compliance, there’s a tool (or several) out there for you.
As business travel keeps changing, having the right tech in your corner makes all the difference. Time to build a travel programme that works smarter – not harder.
