Business travel thrives the most in Asia, where spending on corporate trips is about one-third of global spending. More so, according to Mckinsey and Company, asians are more likely to travel than their European counterparts. There is no sign of this growth slowing soon. Hence, Asian businesses must remain on top of their game to ensure efficient travel management and create smooth sails for employees.
Technology has long been an integral part of the travel industry and is continually evolving. Travel managers now have access to a whole host of corporate travel management software solutions and systems that can help you make the most of your resources for efficient corporate travel planning. Automating travel policy implementation, generating reports in a click, and cost savings are a few benefits technology affords us. In addition, business leaders and HR managers can now spend more time on actual work instead of being bogged down with admin tasks related to travelling.
Because planning corporate travel is a complicated process, businesses use tools and software to streamline their planning. Even though “do-it-all” travel management platforms have excellent features, it pays to have dedicated travel software solutions for each aspect of business travel. All these tools may then be integrated under a comprehensive platform, rather than using under-developed features of a system that claims to do everything from booking and car rentals to expense management and climate action. The following travel management tools in Asia can contribute a great deal to improving the corporate travel experience in your company.
In this article, we'll take a look at:
FWD Insurance is a technology-driven insurance company that hopes to simplify how customers access insurance services, including life and medical insurance, as well as other general insurance policies. Its core values are built around empowering our people and providing customers with an easy way to engage with their insurance needs. As a travel manager, to give your business travellers peace of mind and assured safety while on trips, an insurance policy is non-negotiable, especially one with a quick and straightforward process for making claims if necessary. This is one tool for SMEs and startups to consider.
Riskline provides intelligent insights into various categories of travel risks so that business leaders can stay abreast of global events and how they affect their team’s plans. Business leaders use Riskline to get real-time alerts, risk assessments, safety reports, and travel prep information. Travellers from your team can get specific advice tailored to their trip, including local safety details. Amidst the pandemic, Riskline has continued to track all key COVID-19 data, providing travellers with detailed destination reports. Getting such accurate information is key to planning around risks and improving the efficiency of your corporate travel.
TruTrip is a full-service travel management software that caters to businesses of all sizes and budgets. It’s easy to use, with a booking process that takes only 2 minutes, so your team can book their trips at their convenience. Using its streamlined booking engine, you can quickly and easily book the optimal flights, hotels, rental cars or any other amenity that requires significant lead time. Its TruFlex solution helps businesses adapt to changing business plans by accessing up to 80% cashback on cancellations. With the combination of these features, plus smooth integrations with third-party travel management integrations, TruTrip is a comprehensive singular tool for corporate travel management.
Agoda helps travellers book flights and accommodations easily to destinations across Asia, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and even Oceania. It also partners with other services like Mozio for airport pickups and Rentalcars.com for car rentals. Agoda guarantees you the best prices by offering them a matching rate or money in place of the difference if you find a booking that’s cheaper than what their service provides. In addition, Agoda has a free cancellation fee for travellers. With these benefits, your travellers can experience a seamless booking process and comfortable trips.
Airbnb for Work is a well-recognised travel management tool that allows employers to access services from Airbnb and use them to book accommodation for their employees. It can be used by companies of any size, from start-ups to multinationals, as well as by individual travellers. It allows you to set budgets per trip so that employees will only be able to book accommodations within the company’s set policies. This feature gives you more control over how much money is spent on business travel, which can help you save money overall.
Flyspaces helps travellers find flexible workspaces all over Southeast Asia. In a fast-paced business world when people have meetings even while on their trip, the added convenience of finding a space whenever you need one is an important service your employees should be able to access. There are thousands of spaces available across various categories, including private offices, meeting rooms, pop-up event venues, etc. Cities include Manila, Singapore, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur Jakarta, and travellers can save up to 50% on bookings.
Bedsonline offers a comprehensive travel booking platform designed specifically for travel advisors. Although Bedsonline targets travel agents looking to find the best deals for their customers, companies with a dedicated travel manager will also find this useful for managing trips for employees from a central location. Travel managers have access to a portfolio of destinations across over 185 countries in the APAC region, Europe, and the Americas. You can also enjoy flexible payment (book now, pay later), free cancellation offers, and local payment options.
AltoVita offers companies and start-ups corporate quality standards accommodation where they can take care of their employees’ travel needs and provide solutions that fit their requirements. Providing a selection of verified homes, AltoVita guarantees that the accommodation provided is furnished with modern furniture and appliances. Each property goes through a 4-step verification process and is serviced by professional local team members who ensure that your employees have an amazing experience while travelling. Ensuring that employees travel with convenience should be a priority for any corporate travel policy.
Skyscanner is a multi-destination travel search engine that specializes in helping users find the best flight deals. The software has an extensive database of information on airlines, airports, and travel destinations around the world. This includes flight schedules and prices, hotel reviews and ratings, as well as information about other travel-related products such as car rentals and vacation packages. Skyscanner also offers corporate travel services that can help your team save money by using strategic partnerships with airlines and other travel providers.
Sabre Corporation is one of the world’s largest travel technology companies. Sabre connects various aspects of the travel industry through innovative products and services that focus on data analytics, platform-based agility, and automation to understand more about travellers’ behaviours so they can make better business decisions. While Sabre serves a variety of professionals in the travel industry, corporate travel managers can partner with airlines, hoteliers, and travel management companies to boost efficiency and create seamless travel experiences for their employees. Also, GetThere by Sabre is a corporate booking tool for managing bookings and controlling travel budgets.
The Hertz Corporation is a world-leading car rental company that serves travellers and tourists all around the world. Despite being a US company, it has thrived through one of the top travel management tools in Asia. People struggle with getting around whenever they’re in an unfamiliar place. Arranging easy airport transfers and pick-ups for your employees goes a long way in easing the stress of travelling. Hertz offers various vehicle models including wagons, convertibles, electric vehicles, and SUVs to help travellers get around and have a great stay.
Trainline does just what its name says: help travellers book trains. In a bid to reduce costs due to the financial impacts of the pandemic, corporate bodies are looking toward air transport alternatives, and rail transport has stepped up to fill that gap. Trainline partners with several distributors and rail operators to help you find great deals on rail travel, especially on trips within Europe. If there is a rail option along your employees’ travel routes, you should consider them. Trains can be as convenient as aeroplanes and they are more affordable too.
Travelfusion is a search engine for flights that helps you find the best deals on flights from hundreds of airlines and travel agencies. You can search for flights by departure time, arrival destination or destination country, or browse by destination. As trends in business travel show an uptick in flight trips, after a downturn at the height of COVID-19, such a tool is useful for finding the best options for your and your employees’ trips. Travelfusion compares opportunities from full-service carriers as well as low-cost carriers. This will help you find the most suitable trips for your budget.
Cirium provides aviation data solutions that help organizations make better business decisions by providing a trustworthy view of the market and actionable insights. Cirium works with a range of clients and partners from airlines, airports, and distribution companies to enable digital transformation and optimize performance across multiple business sectors. These data insights into aviation operations can help your team make proactive plans regarding flight bookings. Such industry-specific reports can help you cut unnecessary costs and make better decisions.
Volopay is a cloud-based expense management solution that provides a simple way for companies to manage and reimburse expenses. Particularly, it is a professional solution for businesses who want to empower their employees with payment solutions (including physical and virtual cards) that save time and money. Since Volopay’s money transfer services work in over 130 countries, it is a useful way to book trips for your employees, pay vendors, and process reimbursements, as the need arises. The software also packs a variety of financial tools, all integrated to give you a comprehensive overview of your company’s spending.
The DBS Group (known as The Development Bank of Singapore) is a top digital bank headquartered in Singapore. It offers services such as online banking, investing, and research to its customers. The DBS Group has a wide range of markets it operates in; they operate across Asia but also have operations throughout Europe as well. If you’re looking for a new bank that offers sustainable and responsible banking and fintech practices, a partnership with the bank can help you coordinate and manage business travel expenses and payments.
SAP Concur is a cloud-based expense management product that gives businesses of all sizes the tools they need to manage employee spending across any given business operation, including corporate travel management. It also provides a variety of data insights and analytics that can help businesses control costs and grow their operations. The powerful platform makes it easy to manage employee spending, increase compliance around expenses, and improve reporting capabilities. Concur Travel is its special online corporate travel management platform, enabling you to manage booking data from a single dashboard and enforce corporate travel policy.
Aspire is an all-in-one finance solution for businesses, giving you access to secure payments, expense management, and more – all from one platform. The software can help cut down on the time you spend managing your money and increase efficiency with automated workflows and rules. Businesses using Aspire save time while increasing efficiency by automating processes such as expense management, supply chain management, sales tax calculation and reporting, dispute resolution and much more. With business travel, you can gain more visibility into your spending and manage expenses better with Aspire.
Mobileexpense is a mobile scanner for digitalising receipts and generating automatic expense reports. It functions as an expense report and reimbursement solution designed to enhance employee productivity and reduce the time it takes employees to submit and get reimbursed for expenses. This is especially true in corporate travel, where employees make numerous claims for the trips they take on the company’s behalf. Having a central platform to manage all those receipts is a huge step forward in ensuring that all claims are resolved on time by the travel manager.
In 2022, no list of travel management tools in Asia, or any other region, for that matter, would be complete without eco-friendly options, considering how much the travel industry pollutes our environment. Patch is a platform that connects people to climate change projects around the world. By purchasing carbon credits on their behalf, users can take action on climate change without much effort. Patch helps businesses stay cutting edge by integrating emissions estimates and removal right into their product or service, making climate action a reality with every transaction. As the corporate world becomes increasingly concerned about carbon emissions, Patch is a great option for giving back to the environment by donating to a climate action project to compensate for your emissions.
HelloGTX is an all-in-one CRM software that helps travel agencies and tour operators collaborate in real-time, manage customer relations with ease, and create efficient invoices. It could also be a useful tool for companies looking to enhance their travel planning efficiency. Hello GTX is also a well-known all-in-one travel solution that enables users to take control of their business, generate more revenue and increase profitability by eliminating unnecessary costs. You can also track employees’ travel plans, usage patterns, preferences and complaints via real-time dashboards.
BambooHR is an easy-to-use, cloud-based HR software solution for businesses of all sizes. It offers everything you need to run your HR department—from onboarding new employees to payroll and performance reviews—all in one place. HR managers can focus more on strategic business planning than on creating reports, tracking down paperwork, or chasing down employees for forms. This also helps with managing corporate travel, which involves a lot of administrative tasks. By letting the software take charge of the administrative duties, HR leaders can focus on implementing strategic company culture through the business travel policy.
Mafengwo is a Chinese website on travel information and a variety of services that can help travellers find out the best travel options, such as hotels, airlines, trains, or rental vehicles. It provides information about all kinds of places around the world, from popular tourist destinations to personal recommendations from fellow travellers. It also offers booking options for local and international vacations, as well as convenient accommodation reservation services for every budget. Companies located in China will find this a useful tool for booking trips for their employees, or if you are planning a China trip for your company’s employees, you can start there.
TimeTap helps your business automate appointment scheduling tasks, manage multiple staff calendars, collect customer information, and more. The popular software is designed for any business with multiple staff calendars, as well as businesses that need to collect customer/client information, manage waitlist times, or calculate travel time from one location to another. For booking domestic and international corporate trips, you can use TimeTap to manage your team’s calendar seamlessly from the dashboard.
As a travel manager who has to keep up with various tools for managing different aspects of travel management, it is crucial to also invest in a comprehensive travel management solution that integrates different tools. Book a demo or sign up for a free trial to start enjoying the benefits of flexible corporate travel management.
TruTrip streamlines booking, management, and reporting for hassle-free business trips.