It’s widely rumoured that the hit 1994 Eurodance song “Scatman (Ski-Ba-Bop-Ba-Dop-Bop)” was inspired by a man called “The Statman” – a man with a real penchant for statistics, he couldn’t get enough of them. We believe that Quarterly / Half Yearly Travel Reports would have been his cup of tea!
To anyone that has ever come across a travel report, the statistics can be a little overwhelming. But there are three very key elements we think you should look out for:
Missed Savings Opportunities
Missed savings opportunities are usually one of the biggest pain points for travel managers. These can be caused by seeing where savings could have been made if you travellers had given themselves a bit more time to organise their travel, if they were a bit more flexible in terms of airline, etc. The missed opportunities section can really shed light into ways to make greater future savings.
Total Travel Spend
This is a big one for a couple of reasons.
Firstly, it’s just good to see how much you are spending on your travel. Is it too much? Not enough? This is where you can get a good overview of how your company is behaving overall.
Secondly, and this is a big one, you can use this to check adoption rate. If you have just taken on board a TMC it’s because you see the value in having one (and the value is HUGE, don’t believe us? Check out or previous articles here and here) and if you can see that not everyone has made the switch, it immediately means you’re not getting the full value from your TMC.
You’re also going to be missing out on the cost savings that a TMC can provide over a traveller booking on their own, which can rise to as high as 50% for business class flights. If you do spot this trend, then you and your TMC can work together to increase adoption rate. Getting all of your staff on board will help you reap the benefits a TMC can provide and will make for an even greater report read next time around.
Added Value
This one is great to see just HOW a TMC is making your life better. Being able to see where a TMC has got you a free upgrade or noticed that you had business account miles accrued you could use to massively reduce the cost of a flight are great ways to track how the TMC is benefitting your business.
This section can also be used to help gather an understanding from your TMC as to how they are working for you to provide the best possible service. It’s not the be all and end all of what they offer, but who doesn’t love a free improved seat perk from time to time!?
If you aren’t seeing much value being added, talk to your TMC and ask them about what perks they are able to offer to you as a client.
Traveltrust offers free quarterly reviews as part of our service, we are also able to offer over 600+ live report templates that you can use to track your companies spending in real time. For more information get in touch via [email protected]