Corporate travel management is a complex and demanding job that requires undivided attention to requests, swift and efficient responses, and quick actions. Professionals managing this department of any organization juggle numerous requests daily for booking flights, reserving accommodation, adjusting travel itineraries, assisting with visa and documentation, and more.
Considering the volume and urgency of these requests, it is no surprise that some requests might slip through the cracks, leading to poor management and employee dissatisfaction. That’s where AI comes into action. AI-powered solutions for corporate travel management can reduce the burden on travel managers and ensure that each request is handled with efficiency and timely.
That’s probably why approximately 70% of organizations utilize AI for managing various aspects of business travel. Let’s dig deeper to understand how AI-powered revolutionizes corporate travel management.
What are AI-Powered Solutions for Corporate Travel Management?
AI-powered solutions for business travel management are applications and systems that streamline and simplify various aspects of travel bookings. Whether it is about booking flights and hotel accommodations, managing trip expenses, personalizing travel itineraries, or offering virtual assistance, an AI-enabled solution can perform all these operations in minutes and with complete accuracy.
What Does Corporate Travel Management Include?
Before we look into how artificial intelligence transforms travel management in an organization, let’s find processes or operations a travel manager needs to perform.
Travel Bookings
It includes booking flight tickets, making hotel reservations, arranging car rentals, and other transportation to ensure smooth travel and stay of employees going on official travel.
Trip Expenses Management
Another crucial operation that travel managers of a corporation need to perform is tracking trip expenses and preparing and submitting the reports to the relevant departments.
Policy Compliance Adherence
It involves ensuring that each travel that is requested or booked adheres to the company’s travel policies.
Travel Itinerary Management
Managing travel itineraries involves organizing travel schedules and making necessary adjustments. For instance, if an employee misses his flight or the flight gets canceled, the travel manager has to take immediate action to find and book the next available flight.
Travel Safety
This is one of the key responsibilities of a corporate travel manager. They need to monitor travel risks and offer immediate support in case of emergencies.
Vendor Management
This part of a business travel manager’s job requires negotiating with airlines, hotels, or travel booking service providers to get the best rates and exclusive benefits, such as free cancellation on every booking.
Travel Data Analysis
It means keeping track of travel data to derive crucial cost-related insights and other information to improve travel management.
11 Ways AI-enabled Solutions Transform Corporate Travel Management
Here are eleven interesting use cases of AI in corporate travel management:
#1 Automated Booking
AI-powered solutions bring automation to the travel booking process. Whether it is about booking a flight ticket, hotel room, or rental car, the solution can do every task associated with it without any manual intervention. All it requires travel managers to enter the travel information, such as travel destination, date, and mode, and the solution will automatically show the best options considering the given parameters. Not just the booking, such solutions also accelerate the reimbursement process by allowing expense tracking.
#2 Predictive Analytics
The implementation of artificial intelligence-powered solutions assists travel managers in analyzing historical data to forecast future travel trends. The data derived and predictions offered by AI solutions can help them to secure bookings at the lowest rates possible, optimizing travel expenses and controlling travel budgets for the organization.
#3 Personalized Travel Recommendations
Artificial intelligence technology and solutions built using its capabilities can help businesses understand each employee’s preferences, past travel histories, and company policies to offer personalized options for travel and accommodation booking. It enhances their experience and verifies the booking’s compliance with the company’s policies.
#4 Real-Time Travel Alerts and Notifications
An AI-based solution for corporate travel management offers real-time travel alerts and notifications to travel managers and employees. It can even automatically notify travelers in case of flight delays or cancellations. They can choose to look for other options and the AI solution will offer the same in no time. This approach reduces disruption and makes sure each employee planning to travel is well-informed.
#5 Adherence to Travel Policy Compliance
Utilizing artificial intelligence for corporate travel management enhances adherence to the company’s travel policies. AI solutions automatically check booking choices and requests against the policies and mark the ones that don’t comply with predefined rules associated with budget, preferred booking portal or vendor, travel classes, etc. It minimizes the chances of policy violations and ensures controlled and efficient management.
#6 Travel and Expense Reporting
Companies can simplify travel and expense reporting with an AI solution for business travel management. Such systems automate the process of linking reports to the travel data to offer a detailed view of the expenses. Moreover, they can even categorize expenses and generate reports with minimal human intervention. It enhances accuracy while streamlining the entire process.
#7 Round-the-Clock Support
An AI-enabled solution with a chatbot can be a customer support center for your employees planning to travel. They can speak to this chatbot in case of any query or resolve issues in real-time. From assisting with travel bookings and travel modifications to getting travel policy-related information, an AI Powered Chatbot can respond immediately to any query. It can reduce the workload of travel managers while enhancing employees’ experience and ensuring stress-free travel.
#8 Top-Level Security and Risk Management
Artificial intelligence-enabled systems or solutions can closely monitor geopolitical situations, health advisories, and other risk factors associated with traveling to a particular destination or country. Based on the provided data, companies can do better security and risk management ensuring the complete safety of their employees during travel. They can even be prepared beforehand to respond quickly to any threat.
#9 Travel Expense Fraud Detection
Implementing AI for business travel management can help organizations to prevent travel expense fraud. AI-enabled systems identify unusual patterns, suspicious transactions, and discrepancies in travel expenses. It enables companies and dedicated professionals to follow a proactive approach to prevent financial losses and ensure accurate expense reporting.
#10 Dynamic Pricing Optimization
An AI-powered solution can optimize prices dynamically based on real-time data like booking trends, demand fluctuations, and competitor pricing. It can recommend the best times to book or make travel plans to ensure significant savings and minimize travel expenses for an organization or business.
#11 Enhanced Employee Experience
By making personalized travel arrangements, facilitating a streamlined booking process, and ensuring quick bookings and responses to employee’s travel-related queries, AI-powered solutions contribute significantly to improving employee experience. Real-time travel alerts and notifications and automated adjustments to itineraries in case of any disruption are other ways such solutions ensure employee satisfaction.
Similar Read: How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Travel Industry
Apart from the aforementioned, there could be many other use cases of AI-based solutions for managing corporate travel. These use cases depend on the unique challenges faced by your company.
How to Build an AI-Powered Solution for Business Travel Management?
You can utilize the potential of artificial intelligence to simplify complex business travel management operations in two ways. Firstly, you can implement the technology into your existing travel management system. Secondly, you can build a dedicated AI-enabled solution or software for business travel management.
No matter which of these two you choose, partner with a reliable travel management app development company or travel solution development service provider with considerable experience in artificial intelligence. Here is a stepwise process most reputed companies follow for AI-enabled travel management solution development:
- Identifying Your Requirements
The first step involves identifying your business needs, i.e., your unique travel management-related operations that need an AI makeover. Professionals will understand your travel management requirements, travel policies, and teams involved in performing various operations.
- Designing the AI-enabled Solution
This step paves the way for the successful development of your AI-powered travel management solution. Here, the development team outlines features and functionalities that should be there in the solution. They decide how to utilize AI and its capabilities and design a seamless and intuitive user experience.
- Data Collection
Collecting data from multiple sources and refining this data to ensure it is complete and formatted accurately to be used in AI models is what this step is about. This phase is highly crucial as based on the data, the solution will offer insights to make travel management smarter and effortless.
- AI Model Development
Developing the AI models and algorithms to perform the desired function, training this model on the prepared set of data, and testing the model to validate their proper working is a part of this step.
- System Integration
This step includes integrating the developed and trained AI model into your existing technical infrastructure. It also incorporates implementing top-tier security measures to protect confidential and sensitive employee data.
- Deployment
Handing over the AI solution to the client is the last step of the development process. It also involves training professionals with the key functionalities of the new system.
You might also be interested in How To Develop A Travel App? Explained
Conclusion
An AI-powered solution for corporate travel management can help businesses is no less than a boon. It can perform multiple tasks and process multiple requests at the same time to ensure seamless hotel bookings, flight ticket bookings, travel itinerary adjustments, and overall travel management for the employees.
Explore this blog to learn other unique ways an AI-enabled solution or software for business travel management benefits organizations. In case, you want to implement artificial intelligence to simplify your business’s travel management operations, connect with a trusted and experienced travel management app or solution development company.