As global enterprise continues to grow and vast numbers of corporate employees embark on business-related trips, a new survey has revealed that the majority of businesses are missing the boat when it comes to travel advice.
The vast majority of companies are failing to utilize mobile travel technologies © Maksym Dykha - Fotolia.com
American Express Global Business Travel, one of the world’s leading travel management companies, surveyed 100 corporations ranging from mid-size to global, and their research shows that a shocking number of these are lagging when it comes to their corporate travel policies, particularly in the area of mobile adoption.
The biggest statistic to come out of the survey?
The revelation that precisely none of the 100 companies quizzed addressed how employees should use mobile travel applications, nor did they even reference tools that employees could use on the road to facilitate business.
That statistic becomes all the more surprising when we learn that each of the companies surveyed agreed that business travelers are among the first to adopt mobile travel technologies, and indeed, many of them had actually developed or provided mobile tools for traveling employees. Sadly, none of these technologies were acknowledged in their travel policies
American Express stated in a press release that “successful travel policies should include rules regarding how to use these resources, as well as directions on how employees could identify and take advantage of them to increase compliance and save time”.
The survey also revealed that many companies fail to address issues of security © Eric Gevaert - Fotolia.com
They went on to suggest that corporations need to make more effort at involving employees when it comes to their travel policies, something that would inevitably see more of them taking up the issue of mobile travel in future amendments to these.
Corporations were also recommended to establish policy teams, which should include representatives of travelers, in order to update and maintain company travel policies. Further to this, revised policies then need to be effectively communicated so that travelers can stay up to date with the latest changes.
Tellingly perhaps, the mobile gap wasn’t the only omission in corporate travel policies, as many other crucial elements were not addressed. Among the most serious were that 88% of company travel policies failed to address security concerns, while 80% did not cover the reimbursement of ancillary costs such as car rental and hotel bookings. Finally, more than 70% of companies failed to advise employees on situations when it is appropriate to book cheaper flights through non-preferred airlines.
With more than two thirds of companies surveyed also admitting that their travel policies had not even been updated over the last 12 months, it’s clear that the corporate travel sector has a long way to go.