Benchmarking Your Corporate Travel Programme: 5 Key Factors to Consider

As a corporate travel manager, it's crucial to understand how your travel programme compares to others in the industry. Benchmarking allows you to assess areas for improvement, identify trends, and ensure your programme delivers value while keeping employees satisfied. Here are five key factors to track when comparing your programme against competitors:?

?1. Cost per Trip?

Cost management is a major concern for any corporate travel programme. Tracking the average cost per trip—including flights, accommodation, transport, and additional expenses—helps you identify where money is being spent. By comparing your costs with industry standards, you can assess whether you're paying too much and look for opportunities to negotiate better deals or improve booking strategies.?

?2. Traveller Satisfaction?

The experience of your employees is just as important as the financial side. Gathering feedback on traveller satisfaction will help you understand how well your programme is meeting their needs. Focus on areas such as ease of booking, comfort, convenience, and overall experience. By comparing satisfaction levels to industry benchmarks, you can spot areas for improvement and ensure your programme is supporting employee wellbeing.?

?3. Traveller Safety and Risk Management?

Ensuring the safety of your travellers is critical. Traveller safety includes having proper risk management practices in place, such as tracking employee locations, offering travel insurance, and providing timely updates in case of emergencies. Benchmarking your safety protocols against others in the industry helps you understand if your measures are sufficient or if you need to enhance your approach to protect your employees.?

?4. Booking Compliance and Policy Adherence?

A successful travel programme relies on clear travel policies that employees follow. Tracking booking compliance—how well employees adhere to travel guidelines such as using preferred suppliers or staying within budget—helps ensure the programme runs smoothly. Comparing your policy adherence rates with competitors shows where your policies may need updating or if employees need more support to follow them.?

?5. Sustainability and Environmental Impact?

Sustainability is becoming an increasingly important factor in corporate travel. Tracking the environmental impact of your programme—such as carbon emissions from flights and hotel stays—can help you reduce your company’s footprint. Benchmarking your programme against industry sustainability standards helps you identify areas for improvement and align with broader corporate responsibility goals.?

?By regularly benchmarking these five factors, you can gain valuable insights into how your corporate travel programme performs compared to competitors. This process helps you identify areas for improvement, control costs, ensure employee satisfaction, and stay ahead of industry trends.?