Corporate Travel (commonly referred to as Business Travel) refers to travel made by employees for professional reasons, such as meeting clients, going to conferences, or inspecting a site, in which costs are borne by the organization. Unlike in leisure tourism, where people act out of personal preference and disposable income, this sector is guided by organizational need, demanding strict adherence to budgets, company policies, and duty of care obligations.
The sector is sharply divided into two types depending on the travel procurement.
Corporate travel depends on a suite of specialized integrated technologies used to control costs and streamline administration:
Post-pandemic, the hard separation between business and leisure has blurred, and Blended Travel (formerly Bleisure) has been born. This includes extending a business trip by a few days of leisure (for example, flying into London for a meeting on Friday and staying the weekend to do some sightseeing).
From a tech perspective, this is a source of complexity. Systems must now be able to split payments (the company pays for the flight and Friday night; the employee pays for Saturday night) and liability (does insurance cover the employee on the leisure days?).
The MICE acronym represents Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions. It is a sub-sector of corporate travel that deals with large groups and events. It has different logistics (event planners) unlike transient business travel (individual trips).
Large corporations commit to spending a certain volume with a specific supplier (e.g., “We will spend $1M with Marriott this year”). In return, the supplier offers them a negotiated corporate discount (e.g., 20% off), which is only available through their corporate booking code.
Leakage is when an employee makes a business trip outside of the allowed channels (i.e., booking directly on an airline website rather than through OBT). This invisible spend means that the company is losing access to data and lacks the ability to track the safety of the employee.
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