The complete guide to corporate travel policies

You’ve heard the term “duty of care” before, so it’s important to create a corporate travel policy that puts traveller safety and accessibility needs first. You’ll need to define and assign the roles and responsibilities of everyone involved, including a travel manager, if you have one. 

Set up an emergency assistance plan and provide access to traveller safety information. Determine who is the emergency contact (your TMC?) and how to get in touch. Do they have 24/7 emergency support available by phone or chat? What about email support? 

Invite your HR department, the travellers themselves, and your DE&I manager into a discussion to find out what needs your team has as individuals, what hiccups they face when travelling, and what holes exist in your travel programme that make it difficult to navigate. 

Working with a TMC is a great way to ensure travellers are kept safe before and during their trip.  

You have a budget you need to adhere to, but is it realistic? Setting reasonable budget limits is key to an effective policy. 

Your budget should account for all travel-related expenses, including airfare, accommodation, meals, and ground transportation. And once you’ve set your budget, you can determine reasonable costs for hotels and accommodation, ground transport, flights, and more. Build these caps into your travel booking software to help travellers stay within the set parameters, which will later help with accountability. 

It's important to set clear rules on what the company can pay back and what types of travel expenses are out-of-pocket. 

If you’ve set a maximum daily rate for meals on work trips, it's crucial that travellers understand the limit before racking up additional charges. Requiring receipts can also help keep track of employee spending and make sure they're not going over budget. 

By working with a travel management company like Corporate Traveller, you can easily review your previous year’s expenses and find where you can optimise or make changes based on market changes. 

If you're unfamiliar with how to write a travel and expense policy, creating a simple process for claiming expenses is key to getting your team on the same page. Do you have access to a payment system that pays for the majority of expenses at the time of booking? This could be a good way to save time and stress down the road.  

Another bonus of having a travel and expense policy? The more you can pay for before your travellers get to their destination, the easier everything is to reconcile after they get home.  

If you have a person in charge of reviewing expense reports and watching pre-trip approvals, make sure to set criteria for claim approvals and look at automating processes to make approvals simple! 

Finding the right travel management software is essential. The right booking platform can provide travellers with an easy-to-use experience, giving them access to the best fares and availability. 

For example, at Corporate Traveller, we use Your.CT . It’s a corporate travel platform that includes a booking tool, travel policy pusher, traveller profile manager, reports on request and so much more. 

Your.CT's simple user interface, combined with dedicated travel managers and expert 24/7 emergency support, makes it simple to book, manage, and keep track of your business travel. You’ll be able to access exclusive deals and perks (alongside many negotiated contracts and online deals) and take care of all your travel needs from one place. 

From the get-go, you’ll be able to work closely with our team to ensure that all of your needs are met. We'll help you customise your travel programme to meet specific business needs, build your travel policy into the platform, and offer training to staff to help them along the way. 

Does your corporate travel programme have different rules, limits, or allowances for different levels of seniority? Are some junior members expected to travel in economy class, while some executives are allowed to book in business class?  

If some certain exceptions and situations might allow for an employee to book business class, regardless of their position, you should include that in your policy as well.  

Making this as clear as possible will avoid an approvals nightmare down the road.  

It’s great if you’ve already centralised most of your business travel expenses like flights, accommodation, transportation, and car hires, but your people have to eat! It’s super important to include a meal allowance policy that clearly outlines which meals (and how much) you’ll cover.  

Some of your team might be travelling with corporate credit cards, while others might need to be reimbursed. The guidelines and procedures for submitting expenses or asking for reimbursement need to be crystal clear!  

Make sure to outline if you have a corporate travel policy for alcohol, too! You don’t want murky policies when it comes to footing the bill for drinks. 

Some things to consider for your meal allowance and alcohol travel policy:  

• Which meals are covered and for how much? 
• Who is footing the bill for an alcoholic beverage with dinner? 
• If entertaining clients, what is the budget, and how flexible is it? 
• What is the process of submitting company card expenses? 
• What is the process for requesting reimbursement? 

Your team will always have questions about the policy on food and drinks, so make sure they can find the info easily and have a point of contact for whoever can offer more clarity.  

We briefly touched on executive travel when we talked about travelling in business class, but there is certainly more to the top dogs travelling. 

Executive travel can be a touchy subject if there are more lenient policies in place than there are for less senior team members. Your executives also may need to know the guidelines in place for their own travel, so they don't accidentally go overboard, which could be an accounting nightmare! 

You’ll need to make sure you deliver a guide for approvals, procedures, booking deadlines, meals, accommodation, basically everything.  

Lay it all out. Make your policy as digestible as possible, and for a busy exec, consider bullet points and titles in bold so they can easily skim to the areas they need to know. 

There is always the chance of your travellers  being impacted by a natural disaster (or even a pandemic). We’ve seen it before – earthquakes, tsunamis, volcano eruptions, hurricanes. Do you have a plan or policy to aid your team and guide them through the unthinkable?  

In 2022, we surveyed 120 employees across various industries and businesses. More than half, 51% of respondents said their companies didn't provide resources or tips for safety on their trips. Duty of care isn't something to put on the back burner; it's your legal obligation to make sure your team is informed. 

Remember when we said travellers will only read your policy to find a solution for a specific need? Whether it’s a link, a phone number, or a step-by-step tutorial – a well-managed travel policy should provide them with the right resources. 

Instead of treating a travel policy as a list of rules, treat it like a resource sheet. Here are some key pieces of information travellers might need to pull up easily: 

• Your approved online booking tool (and steps on how to use it) 
• QR codes to download your mobile travel app 
• Preferred airlines, including class, budgets, and other limits 
• Permissible hotels, including guidelines on star-class and incidental expenses 
• Guidelines on ground transportation (trains, ride-sharing services, rental cars, and personal car usage) 
• How to get travel support 
• Travel insurance carrier 
• Clarification on the reimbursement process (more on this later)

You can also include other factors specific to your company, but this should at least be the necessary groundwork to help employees make the right choices on their own. 

Let’s face it: even with the best communication efforts, there’s always a chance that an employee may violate policy, even unintentionally. So, what can you do?

Build policy into booking

By building your travel policy into your travel management software, it becomes unavoidably embedded in the booking process, so even the most easily confused employees end up following by default.  

Automation tools can sound the alarm on out-of-policy bookings and even provide an audit trail. This can be especially helpful for employees who may struggle to remember procedures and policies, especially after big changes to your travel programme. 

No one wants to get stuck waiting on the money they’re owed – or worse – find out they’re not getting reimbursed for an expenditure they thought would be covered. 

Having a clear and well-defined expense claim process is critical in any travel policy. Employees need to know how to claim their travel expenses, how soon they need to submit an expense report, and when to expect reimbursement.  

The travel expense policy should also be clear about what expenses are and are not reimbursable, including any limits or exceptions. For example, if an employee needs to book a different seat class to accommodate a disability, the policy should include the process for requesting and approving this expense.  

Plus, a submission deadline reduces cash flow issues and provides more accurate and complete expense data for that period (your finance team will thank you later). 

As a company, you have a duty-of-care responsibility. When it comes to business trips, you need to be prepared for the unexpected. No matter how much effort you put into planning, there will always be a few hiccups along the way.  

For instance, lost luggage, cancelled or delayed flights, and sudden weather or political emergencies in unfamiliar destinations could all leave your employee stranded.  

“Companies need to be prepared to plan for the particular, not just the universal. Every aspect of the travel programme needs to be able to fit each of your travellers like a glove, from adaptable plans and experts on call, to technology that makes the journey seamless.” - Emese Graham, DE&I Manager @ FCTG 

Don’t let unexpected situations blindside you. Have processes in place to ensure travel safety and security. Make sure they know what to do, where to go, and who to get a hold of if something goes wrong. Taking a proactive and prepared approach to your policy can minimise the impact of emergencies and take care of your team’s well-being while they’re on the road. 

Here’s a free business travel policy best practice just for you! It isn’t just a “one and done” deal – it’s a living document. 

What’s that mean? As your company grows and travel conditions change, so should your travel policy. Revisit your expense policy at least once a year to keep it relevant and effective – and lead you towards new cost-saving solutions. 

Data is going to be your best friend here. Here are a few key factors you should look into when updating your travel policy:

• Analyse travel spend patterns – are you throwing a lot of company money at certain suppliers? You might want to see if you can negotiate a new deal or find better rates elsewhere.
• Identify areas of overspending or inefficiency – are employees accruing high parking or travel costs? See if you can get season tickets or other accommodations.
• Evaluate the overall performance of your policy – are you still compliant with any new regulations that have come into play since the policy was established? How can the traveller experience be improved?
• You may even want to consider enlisting the help of professionals, such as a travel management company with experience in expense management, to give advice on how to optimise your travel policy to better meet the needs of your employees and your business as a whole. 

Travel managers can use best practices to ensure all employees are aware of and understand travel programmes. Visual policies, internal documents, and guides all work well. People learn differently, so it's a good idea to have key information in both visual and text formats.

A yearly update is also beneficial, as well as communication on any major changes, like new technology or changes in the approval process or submitting expenses. An internal FAQ page can increase understanding of corporate travel guidelines, as well as prompt new questions.

Book a demo of Your.CT, the all-in-one travel platform.

Highlight areas of company travel that offer flexibility, to show what’s possible for different preferences. Talk about benefits like an online booking tool vs. working directly with a TMC.

Developing interactive content, like employee surveys, can show if traveller satisfaction is achieved. It also helps identify travel arrangements that are unnecessary for cost savings.

Travel policies cross paths with a lot of different departments, from sales to the finance team. Identifying key people and keeping them involved in developing the travel programme means getting buy-in and internal support.

Corporate Traveller has a long history of travel management and is ready to join forces as an external member of your travel planning team. Let’s make booking a breeze, together.