Corporate booking tools or CBTs have been rapidly increasing in popularity for a number of reasons with money savings being the most relevant to them. CBTs certainly have lots of strong points, but they also have a few drawbacks.

Corporate booking tool strengths

The use of a CBT results on direct savings since booking autonomy reduces agencies’ travel management workload allowing them to reduce the TMC fees.

The adoption of such solutions results in indirect savings too. The access to self-booking tools increases the time in advance the booking is made which allows travelers to take advantage of lower fares/rates.

Additional savings can be accomplished by setting corporate travel policies and ensure its compliance. Corporate booking solutions offer travel policy compliance feedback during the all the booking process, leading travelers or travel managers to choose cheaper options or options more aligned with its company interest like driving them to book with a preferred vendor.

Even with travel policy compliance feedback during the booking, approvers’ authorization may be a requirement. Travel authorizations are made easier when working with a CBT since notifications and trip policy compliance feedback is provided to the approvers to help them screen the trip booked and guarantee a fast approval workflow.

Business travel reporting is another appealing aspect of corporate booking tools since it is vital to continue companies’ quest to minimize travel costs. It can be used to help companies to study employees’ bookings and detect trends. This information is vital not only to correct employees’ booking behavior but also to spot potential vendor partnerships.

The goal is, ultimately, to save the company money and to ensure that all corporate travelers are booking their trips according to the company’s travel policy.

 

 

Corporate booking tool weaknesses

Corporate booking tools aren’t a gate to all business trip related services so there are still a number of services corporate travelers need to book and use that CBTs don’t offer. This decentralization obliges travelers to use different services to plan their business trips and turns it harder for companies to minimize the full travel cost and optimize employees’ travel plan.

On the travel agency side, there are several factors that have not facilitated a wider adoption of CBTs over the years.

Corporate booking tools business model is not aligned with travel agencies business model. Travel agents revenue generation is based on tickets issued while corporate booking tools usually charge a cost per booking, this disconnection between the two business models has prevented many travel agencies from offering a CBT to their customers.

CBTs usually have also implementation costs which are a barrier to travel agency adoption due to the initial investment involved.

Another aspect that makes travel agencies wonder about its adoption is that Corporate Booking Tools have been known for being complex to set up, requiring specialized teams to manage the tool which means human resource costs have also to be taken in consideration in the CBT equation.

These are the reasons why CBTs are usually only used by big corporate clients. With these costs in mind, from the point of view of a travel agency, the offer of a CBT to SMEs clients would hardly have an interesting investment return.

 

 

How TTS Corporate CBT position itself in the market?

There are a number of great corporate booking solutions out there in the marketplace today, and TTS Corporate is one of them.

TTS Corporate is on a mission to democratize CBTs, it’s a solution that travel agencies can offer to small and medium corporate clients and even to the big ones if what they wish is simplicity.

This CBT offers a fast and intuitive booking flow to the traveler where travel policy compliance feedback is always present and a truly simple management experience to travel managers and travel agents. No training needed.

Learn more about TTS Corporate here!

TTS Corporate has mobile access, too, it’s available for both Apple and Android devices giving the traveler the mobility he needs to plan his business trips.

One side of TTS Corporate will no doubt make the finance office smile – it’s free. Advanced features can be activated only for the companies that need them allowing the travel agency to pay only for what each corporate customer needs.

To better align the technology with the Travel Agencies’ business model, TTS Corporate does not have setup, implementation or booking costs. Self-register is available and takes less than a minute enabling agencies to try it out without commitments of any kind.