As the old saying goes, “time is money”, so you definitely don’t want to be spending more on a business trip when the ultimate objective is productivity.
A business trip is a significant investment for the CEO and controllers to make, so there must be an important reason behind the excursion. As a result, you’ll want to control the amount of funds you spend on your business trip in order to minimise costs and ultimately maximise profits.
While you may be able to access a lender of short term loans in the event of a personal financial emergency, if you’re looking to save money on a business trip, there are a few top tips you can follow.
Only Travel With Carry-On Luggage
Many business trips only last for a few days, so something you’ll really want to ask yourself is ‘do I really need all of that luggage?’ We’d suggest travelling with hand luggage only, as not only will this allow you to skip waiting laborious waiting times in luggage check but will also save you a lot of money for your flight, especially when travelling with multiple employees. This way, you don’t need to stress about whether or not you’ve exceeded the luggage limit, thus avoiding any extra fees that many are subject to when travelling with ordinary luggage.
Revise Your Corporate Travel Policy
Travelling around the world on a business trip isn’t a simple case of booking tickets and jetting off – there are many factors that need to be considered and processes put in place beforehand. As a business, it’s essential that you have a corporate travel policy in place to not only make the travel process seamless, but also to save you money in the long-term. If you already have a corporate travel policy in place, now might be the optimal time to revise it and decide whether or not it’s robust enough to cover every aspect of travel that your business faces.
Your corporate travel policy should be much more than basic warnings and rules to follow. Instead, it’s an opportunity to share cost-saving tips with your employees to make the overall business trip as affordable as possible. Even if you employ a handful of different booking strategies, you can help to save the company a lot of money for all upcoming business travel events.
Be Smart With Your Public Transport Choice
Unless you hire a company car out in your business trip destination, it’s highly likely that you’ll depend heavily on public transport throughout your stay abroad. As a result, you’ll want to prepare in advance and ensure that you can afford your choice of transport. While there are many beneficial deals on offer for train services around the world, undeniably the most cost-effective mode of transport to confide in is a taxi service, but not just any ordinary one – Uber. The joys of using Uber consist of only paying for the distance that you need travelled – with trains, although discount cards work wonders, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll need to use the entire spectrum of the train line, possibly making it a poor investment.
Factor Additional Charges Into Your Budget
The golden rule for saving money on your business travel abroad is undeniably planning in advance, and realising that accommodation and travel aren’t the only costs that you’ll want to worry about. Instead, as a business, it’s highly likely that you’ll require some source of WiFi at your chosen accommodation in order to keep productivity levels high, so you certainly won’t want to spend large amounts of money on this facility.
Moreover, if you do decide to go down the car hire route, where will you park, and how much will this cost you over several days? Small factors like this can easily slip your mind, however their essential to factor into your budget if you want to save large quantities of money. It’s also worth noting that, to save the most amounts of money, book your flights and accommodation reasonably far in advance. Considering that a large number of business trips are organised around a conference that’s occurring in the destination country, this gives you months to prepare.
Inspire Your Employees To Spend Less
Putting the above tips aside, undeniably the biggest factor that contributes to the amount of money that’s spent over the course of a business trip is the employees themselves. No matter how strong your policy is, or the amount of discounted business packages you were able to take advantage of, your employees ultimately decide how much they wish to spend when abroad on business travel. Most of the time, the CEO and financial advisers put their faith in these employees – after all, as long as they’re reimbursed for travel costs, the price of the trip won’t matter, right?
That’s a risky attitude to have, and while costs might be reimbursed, you’ll want to focus much more on boosting both profits and productivity while on a business trip, so give your employees a reason to save! Reward schemes are great way to enforce this, whether you decide to provide the highest-saving employee with a gift voucher, or perhaps provide them with an extra day of holiday.
Business trips are an excellent way to inspire employees and develop their current skills in order to make them a greater asset to your company. Additionally, business trips provide you with an optimum opportunity to learn new insights about the industry you operate in, so the opportunity should never be waved off. Instead, budget smartly before you depart, as this way you can enjoy your business trips without any financial concerns.