Economic downturns are when companies need to do vital business and hold on to vital clients. It is also the time when firms want to cut down on costs –and especially on travel.
What’s the way out? Professional guidance, with a sense of detail, says American Express Business Travel, a unit of the credit card and banking firm which says that companies can reduce their travel bill by 5 and 30 per cent adopting a systematic way to prune expenses while maintaining core business concerns in order.
“Cutting down of travel does not necessarily mean you reduce it to zero. These are times when lot of customers need to be visited and employees need to make extra effort to counter the effects of slowdown. So one needs to judiciously make use of the travel budget and this is where professional travel management company helps,” said Manoj Chacko, head of business travel at the AmEx unit in India.
AmEx has released a white paper which says that a company by changing its travel policies can save up to 33 per cent on airfares alone. Online bookings can reduce travel expenses by 10 per cent and advance bookings rather than booking a ticket three to four days prior to the date of travel can make substantial savings.
{{/usCountry}}AmEx has released a white paper which says that a company by changing its travel policies can save up to 33 per cent on airfares alone. Online bookings can reduce travel expenses by 10 per cent and advance bookings rather than booking a ticket three to four days prior to the date of travel can make substantial savings.
{{/usCountry}}Corporate finance heads HT spoke to said that they have revised the travel policies and have directed employees not to stay overnight during travel. Employees have been asked to travel by low cost airlines.