It’s official! Small businesses pay more for business travel. Kelton Global’s Small Business Traveler Study for IHG surveyed 1005 employees of SMEs and found that booking business travel is more time consuming, stressful and difficult to negotiate compared to larger organisations.
Key findings from the report includes:
- Travellers and bookers feel obliged to seek the lowest possible prices for their trip, despite few of these companies having strict guidelines on budget for travel.
- Smaller companies find booking business travel more challenging as there is not a central place to book different types of travel.
- It typically takes an employee a staggering nine steps to make a booking when using a average travel website.
- A travel booker from a smaller company will, on average, visit a hotel booking website three times before choosing an option to book.
So, why do small businesses have to suffer for their business travel?
The simple answer is that the business travel world has not been kind to smaller businesses. Whereas large companies are settled into long standing contracts with Travel Management Companies (TMCs) who look after their every need, the cost of this support and management is just not worth it for SMEs when compared with the return they get for their travel.
In addition to the cost, many TMCs are not keen to take on businesses who don’t travel frequently or those that don’t spend a significant amount on their travel. Most prefer to chase after the more lucrative multi-million pound spenders.
So, where has this left the SME traveller? As this study clearly shows, it leaves them flailing around on multiple consumer websites, wasting their time to comparing options across multiple websites and repeatedly checking back at their options before booking just a single hotel room - if you add air and rail travel into the mix then you’re hit with a dizzying array of options, emails confirmations and are left with a very mixed up inbox!
Your business travel doesn’t have to suffer!
Thankfully, the business travel world is finally waking up and responding to the needs of SME travellers. There are now websites where you can book all of your flights, rail and hotels in one place, for multiple travellers, at no additional cost.
travel.cloud is one such website. Catering exclusively for business travellers, it takes all the hassle and stress out of your bookings are charges absolutely no sign up or booking fees whatsoever. What’s more, travel.cloud not only lets you book travel for yourself but also for your colleagues, with everyone being able to access a common pool of confirmations and booking references. If that’s not enough, travel.cloud also has a reporting tool which allows you to run reports of your organisation’s business travel into one neat excel sheet.
Whether it’s simply booking a hotel in Slough or a complex trip for 6 to Shanghai via a train to London Heathrow, travel.cloud has got you covered. With access to the best rates from across multiple channels, you’ll never need to spend 4 hours website-jumping from deal to deal just to book a straightforward business trip ever again.
Give travel.cloud a go today.
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