What to Consider When Creating a Travel Policy

Below we list what you should consider when building your travel policy. Whether you’re starting from scratch or refreshing your latest version, the items below can help you create an effective travel policy. 

1. Current Travel Policy Refresh

Analyzing your existing policy can help you figure out what is crucial to keep and what needs updating. Going through your policy also allows you to identify inefficiencies and areas of overspending. 

To highlight what needs updating, ask the following: 

• How many trips are scheduled each month? Are they all essential?  
• How much is spent on each trip? 
• What areas are costing your business the most? 
• Are there issues with the expense and reimbursement process?
• What problems have your travelers expressed in the past? 
• Are there any trends in the industry to think about addressing?  
• Are there new regulations or external factors to consider? 

Asking these questions helps you get to the root of current problems, find trends, understand what travelers have trouble with, and set you up to create a more successful policy in the future.  

2. Company Goal Alignment

Determine what your goals are when building your new travel policy. Are you trying to cut costs or improve traveler safety? Pick a few main goals so you have a set vision and can easily draft each section with your priorities in mind. 

Other examples of goals and priorities for refreshing your travel policy: 

• Increase efficiencies 
• Improve compliance 
• Reduce confusion for employees 
• Accommodate your growing team 
• Schedule more purposeful trips 
• Provide a higher quality experience for employees 
• Reduce administrative workload 
• Make tracking travel spend more understandable 
• Enhance traveler satisfaction and experience 
• Have a competitive travel program to retain and attract new talent 

Establishing these priorities will ensure that employees understand the purpose behind the policy and help you achieve your goals. 

3. Level of Flexibility

Over the past few years, more travelers have started pushing for flexibility. Recent Wakefield and Concur research shows that the pandemic only enhanced that desire, with 72% of corporate traveler respondents ranking flexibility as a top consideration for business travel.   

Before you start building your policy, figure out what level of flexibility or strictness you want. Do you require employees to request approval for every trip before booking it? Do you allow travelers to book for themselves, or will an admin handle booking? Can travelers incorporate leisure into their business travel?  

Every company is unique, and its policies should reflect its specific needs. So, your flexibility will look different. It may mean providing accommodation options, letting travelers book themselves but within policy guidelines, or allowing travelers to add leisure days to their trips. Whatever you choose to go with, strict or flexible, make it clear in your travel policy. 

4. Travel Technology and Trends

Adopting new technology and trends helps you improve compliance rates, traveler experience, and productivity. Using travel technology instead of clunky documents to automate parts of your processes will reduce manual labor and cut back on wasted time.  

Having a tool for booking, for example, helps travelers book within policy more often and therefore improves compliance. Utilizing tools makes your travelers’ and team’s lives easier.  

Embracing new travel trends allows you to give travelers more flexibility, attract talent, and keep up with the changing travel environment.  

Recently, booking alternative lodging options, like Airbnb or Vrbo, and using rideshare apps, like Uber or Lyft, have become more common for business travelers. Also, trends such as “bleisure” travel can attract new talent that views business travel as a perk. 

These added choices give travelers more flexibility and allow them to travel how they feel comfortable. Look around at the innovative tech and emerging trends to find the ones that best fit your company. 

5. Compliance from Travelers

According to TravelPerk, 50% of corporate travelers say they don’t always follow their policy. If you want your employees to adhere to it, you need to communicate the reason for your travel policy. Explain how the policy impacts them and the company.  

Educate them on what’s included in the policy. Demonstrate where travelers can find what they need, such as emergency contact information, booking and upgrades, expenses and reimbursement, and what their per diem covers. 

Also, make sure it’s accessible for your employees. Email it to travelers, add it to your company’s file-sharing system, and have it be available through your booking tool. You can even create a FAQ page or resource for employees to review when needed. In addition to being found easily, travelers should want to look at the policy, so finding ways to excite employees is essential. 

Compliance helps you reach the goals you want to achieve with your travel program. If you create a travel policy to support your travel program, but travelers aren’t complying, then that hard work goes to waste.  

6. Feedback from Travelers

Travelers failing to follow your travel policy may be due to confusion or frustration with the process. Giving employees a place to provide feedback shows you care about their experiences. It’s a way to receive and implement ideas to increase efficiency, improve traveler satisfaction, reduce costs, and reach other company goals.  

Create a closed-loop feedback channel and ask travelers what they do and don’t like, what’s challenging, and what they would improve about the process, from approval to expenses. In your policy, explain how travelers can comment on the process. 

Reading through the responses and implementing the necessary fixes helps you continuously improve and adapt to travelers’ needs and the changes within the business travel industry.