5 ways to maximise your business travel spend

Business travel is an important investment for business growth, but without the right strategies, expenses can quickly spiral.

Many businesses assume that reducing travel costs means cutting back on trips or limiting traveller choice, but that doesn’t have to be the case. In fact, companies working with Corporate Travel Management (CTM) have found that the right strategies can lower spend while increasing travel activity.

Here are 5 ways to maximise your business travel budget while keeping your business moving.

1. Revise your travel policy

A well-structured travel policy helps to support the business’s bottom line and travel compliance. Having areas clearly defined, such as preferred suppliers, booking channels, rate caps, carbon budgets and approval processes defined by role type or department, guides travel arrangers and business travellers into making informed travel choices to achieve business travel goals.

Companies with a well-communicated and enforced travel policy configured to online booking technology will benefit from being able to make more data-driven decisions to maximise their travel budget.

Pro tip: Review your policy to align with market trends and employee needs.

Success story: CTM supported a customer in implementing a new travel policy that reduced their total travel expenditure by 21% without impacting the frequency of business travel. Read more in the learn what solutions CTM implemented to drive savings.

2. Implement approval workflows

Introduce an approval system to prevent missed savings and encourage better budget decisions. A passive approval process saves time for travel approvers and bookers while ensuring that the best fares and urgent bookings are not lost.

For example, due to the highly configurable nature of CTM’s Lightning online booking tool, with a passive approval process, companies can choose to allow all in-policy bookings to be automatically approved, safe in the knowledge that these bookings are within the company’s travel policy.

To maintain oversight, notifications of bookings can be sent to the selected ‘approver’ once bookings are made, ensuring all required stakeholders of the business remain informed. This eliminates the need for active approval, where the best fares may be lost due to oversight.

Did you know? CTM’s Lightning offers features to address several pain points companies may face with the approval process: multi-tier approvals, policy by country, reallocating approvers, days in advance, and approval based on role type.

Success story: CTM worked with a multi-national manufacturing firm and found that by having active approvals over passive approvals, their business was losing $5K per month. Read the case study to find out how much the business was on track to save after just one year of switching to a passive approval with manager notifications.

3. Rethink supplier rate negotiations and partnerships

The traditional hotel RFP process is evolving. Today, companies can drive greater value by adopting more flexible and data-driven approaches to supplier relationships. Instead of focusing only on annual rate negotiations, businesses are moving toward continuous sourcing, dynamic discounts, and program design that reflects actual traveller behaviour.

Work with your travel management company (TMC) to identify where volume-based negotiations make sense (such as high-frequency routes or key hubs) and where leveraging your TMC’s broader buying power may deliver better outcomes. Increasingly, value can also be created outside of rate negotiations, such as improving program compliance, boosting attachment rates with preferred hotels, or aligning with suppliers that meet sustainability and wellbeing goals.

Pro Tip: Replace outdated ‘set and forget’ contracts with regular program reviews. This ensures your travel program continues to reflect market trends, traveller needs and evolving business objectives.

Success story: CTM supported an FMCG customer by creating a bespoke identifier in our Lightning online booking tool to highlight hotels that stocked the customer’s products. This empowered travellers to book with partners aligned to their brand, improved attachment rates with preferred hotels, and strengthened commercial relationships, demonstrating that value can also be created through strategic program design, not just rate negotiation.

4. Advance booking & fare forecasting technology

Booking flights at least 14–21 days in advance remains one of the most effective ways to secure the best available rates, providing significant cost savings compared to last-minute bookings. While this strategy has long been a staple in corporate travel cost management, its effectiveness has been greatly enhanced by modern fare forecasting technology.

Fare forecasting technology, such as CTM’s Fare Forecaster empowers corporate travellers and travel managers to decide the optimal time to book, balancing cost savings with flexibility. By combining advanced booking behaviours with cutting-edge forecasting technology, businesses can maximise savings while ensuring greater control over travel budgets. This proactive approach not only reduces overall travel spend but enhances policy compliance and traveller satisfaction by securing preferred flights at the best possible rates.

Pro tip: Be aware of major events (Grand Prix, major sporting grand finals, music tours) as they may have an impact on hotel rates and airfares

Quick Fact: Using CTM’s Fare Forecaster feature, we analysed* routes across the US, Europe, Australia & New Zealand and Asia. CTM found that shifting an itinerary by just 1-4 days could save business travellers on average upwards of 12%, and in some cases up to 67%, on their flight price with CTM’s Fare Forecaster.

5. Utilise a travel management online booking tool (OBT) to support your travel policy

An OBT system is designed to streamline bookings, support compliance, risk management, and duty of care and provide access to exclusive corporate rates, ultimately reducing costs. Not all OBTs are created equal, so conduct research and ask your TMC the right questions to ensure the technology can service your travel management goals. It is also important to maximise the OBTs features and its ability to configure to your travel policy, driving better booking behaviour through ‘visual guilt’ – flagging out-of-policy bookings via approval workflows.

Success story: CTM delivered a customer in the UK £228K in savings over two months while increasing online adoption by 20%, reaching an overall rate of 91% through its proprietary online booking tool, Lightning. Learn more about the solutions implemented in this case study, delivering efficiency gains.

Pro tip: Look for an OBT that is intuitive, flexible and customisable to your business needs. Have your wish list of requirements and speak with your TMC to ensure they have a solution that delivers on your business goals.

Reducing business travel costs doesn’t have to mean cutting essential trips. By implementing these five tips, your organisation can maintain an efficient travel program while maximising business travel spend.