Booking travel for your boss? Managers reveal the biggest travel mistakes their assistants have made
- Written by The Times
Mistakes – from choosing the wrong time to book, to overbooking flights and accommodation – are all common missteps that assistants and team members make when arranging travel for their bosses. Now, a new survey of business owners and managers has revealed that more than half (55%) have either been inconvenienced, stranded between flights, or lost money when their teams have looked after their travel bookings.
The findings have been taken from a survey of an independent panel of 255 SME owners and decision-makers, commissioned by Corporate Traveller, a leading travel management company for SMEs and a division of Flight Centre. Corporate Traveller asked survey respondents about nine mistakes that their team assistants, or someone in their organisation, has made when booking travel.
Saskia Boxem, NSW/ACT Head of Customer Success for Corporate Traveller, said that by sharing the results, in-house travel bookers can take note of the slip-ups that are being picked up by their managers, and seek to address them.
She said: “Booking business travel can be a complicated process, especially when arranging travel for large groups or booking at the last minute. As assistants do their best to juggle travel bookings alongside their other, often higher priority tasks, they can sometimes be more prone to making mistakes.
“However, for many businesses and managers, these mistakes can have a large impact on their budgets and be costly ones to make and rectify. To help alleviate the pressure, team assistants should consider using travel booking platforms and travel management companies, such as Corporate Traveller, which offer round-the-clock support and the best travel expertise,” continued Saskia.
The top mistakes team assistants are making when booking business travel, ranked below:
2. Getting traveller’s details incorrect on bookings make up 27% of mistakes. More than a quarter (27%) of those who admitted to making mistakes said they had incorrectly inputted traveller details when booking travel. Whether it’s misspelling a name, an incorrect date of birth, or a wrong name altogether, incorrect traveller details take time to rectify. Businesses are unlikely to make this mistake when using a travel management company or platform, which eliminates manual errors by creating a booking profile for each traveller.
4. 25% of errors are travel booking that are not approved or go over budget. If an employee is left to book their own travel, they could risk overspending on a hotel or flight and by the time management has noticed it could be too late to amend without financial penalties. It’s the fourth most common mistake made by those who admitted to getting things wrong when booking travel, at 25 per cent. A travel management company, on the other hand, can lock in a spending cap to keep a lid on frivolous spending.
5. Making bookings that inconvenienced travellers make up 24% of mistakes. Businesses also reported that when travel is managed by assistants or other team members, there is a risk the traveller could be booked onto an inconvenient flight time, or at a hotel that is miles from their early morning meeting location. Almost a quarter (24%) of businesses that have made travel booking mistakes admitted to this particular error.
“Not only are there financial implications to rectify the mistakes, but an organisation’s corporate reputation could suffer damage if a traveller arrives late to a meeting because of a simple booking mistake.” Saskia said.
For more information or to book a business consultation, visit corporatetraveller.com.
