executive travel meaning

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Executive travel policy.

As a company executive, you are often required to travel for business purposes. Whether you are attending a conference, meeting with clients, or visiting a company branch, traveling is an integral part of your job. However, without a clear executive travel policy, managing your travel arrangements can be stressful and time-consuming. In this article, we will discuss what an executive travel policy is, why it is important, and how you can create one for your organization.

What is an Executive Travel Policy?

An executive travel policy is a set of guidelines and procedures that dictate how executives should travel for business purposes. It covers everything from booking travel arrangements to reimbursing expenses. The policy is designed to ensure that executives can travel efficiently, safely, and within budget while representing the company’s best interests.

Why is an Executive Travel Policy Important?

Having a clear executive travel policy is crucial for several reasons:

• Efficiency: A well-defined travel policy streamlines the travel booking and reimbursement process, saving time and effort for everyone involved.
• Consistency: A consistent policy ensures that all executives are treated equally and fairly when it comes to travel arrangements and expenses.
• Cost control: An executive travel policy helps companies manage their travel budget by setting limits on expenses and providing guidelines for cost-effective travel options.
• Compliance: By establishing clear rules and procedures, an executive travel policy helps companies comply with applicable laws and regulations.

Creating an Executive Travel Policy

Creating an executive travel policy requires careful consideration of various factors, including:

• Travel budget: Determine how much the company can spend on executive travel and set appropriate limits on expenses.
• Travel arrangements: Decide how executives should book their travel, including transportation, lodging, and meals.
• Travel approval process: Establish who has the authority to approve executive travel and how the approval process works.
• Expense reimbursement: Define the process for submitting and reimbursing travel expenses, including required documentation and timelines.
• Travel safety: Develop guidelines for ensuring the safety and security of executives while they are traveling for business.

An executive travel policy is an essential tool for managing travel arrangements and expenses for executives. By creating a clear and comprehensive policy, companies can ensure that their executives travel efficiently, safely, and within budget while representing the company’s best interests. If you have not yet created an executive travel policy for your organization, now is the time to do so.

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• Corporate Finance

Corporate Business Travel: Everything You Need to Know

Katie Miller is a consumer financial services expert. She worked for almost two decades as an executive, leading multi-billion dollar mortgage, credit card, and savings portfolios with operations worldwide and a unique focus on the consumer. Her mortgage expertise was honed post-2008 crisis as she implemented the significant changes resulting from Dodd-Frank required regulations.

Corporate business travel involves the movement of individuals representing their organizations for work-related reasons. Whether it’s attending client meetings, industry conferences, or sealing business deals, this practice covers a range of activities essential for professional growth.

In the interconnected global business environment, where face-to-face connections matter, corporate business travel plays a central role in sustaining and expanding enterprises across borders. Businesses face challenges in optimizing this crucial element of their operations. Strategic considerations must be taken into account to use this element of business to its greatest potential.

Key Takeaways

• Corporate business travel can unlock new opportunities for business growth, offering the possibility of reaching new markets, connecting with a wider pool of prospects, or developing brand presence and reputation.
• Traveling for business has many benefits for individuals as well, providing them the chance to meet fellow employees, grow their career by participating in different opportunities, and network within the industry, not to mention experience new destinations.
• Business traveler safety and security are top priorities during corporate travel.
• To ensure that travel goes smoothly and stays within budget, companies should implement corporate travel policies and best practices for employees traveling on behalf of the company.

Importance of Corporate Business Travel

There are many business-related reasons to travel. It can encourage team building, promote learning, offer different perspectives, provide connection to a wider network, open up new markets, and drive sales. And whether or not the trip is for a specific purpose (such as a conference or a retreat), the benefits for employees and companies alike can extend beyond the stated intent of the trip, building confidence, cultural competency, relationships, and company reputation.

Many employees consider the opportunity to travel for work a desirable job perk, as it can offer the chance to venture somewhere that they may not ordinarily go, or to have a trip paid for by their company. And although expenses are associated with travel from a corporate perspective, they may be well worth the return on investment in terms of potential leads or sales—plus, many travel expenses are tax- deductible .

Types of Corporate Business Travel

Corporate travel can take many forms, including the chance for employees and executives to attend events, such as meetings, conferences, industry networking sessions, and fairs. Or a trip may take advantage of educational opportunities such as training sessions, seminars, and workshops. Retreats and guided trips can make for valuable team-building time in new contexts that unlock different perspectives and strengthen working relationships.

Businesses may send their employees to a different location to network, sell, teach, learn from, or generally connect with external contacts or internal employees in regional offices, or to act on behalf of the company in some way.

Additionally, from a client perspective, business travel may occur as a form of due diligence , ensuring that your vendors or suppliers are legitimate, legal, and compliant organizations—for example, traveling for regular audits to confirm that what you think is happening at your supplier organizations is actually happening.

Creating a Corporate Travel Policy

From a company perspective, travel can be a challenge to administer and manage . Costs can easily balloon out of control; travel logistics can be time-intensive to arrange; employees traveling on behalf of the company must be granted a great deal of trust; and like any form of travel, business travel can open up risks to safety, security, and health.

No matter the size of the business or the frequency or complexity of travel, a corporate travel policy can be a helpful tool for any company to set expectations for its employees, communicate guidelines and processes, keep expenses within budget, and streamline booking and logistics.

In creating a corporate travel policy, companies might consider the following for both domestic and international travel, as applicable:

• Purpose(s) of travel
• Which employees are eligible to travel
• Booking and expense approval processes
• Risks and liabilities of travel and how to manage them
• Expectations for employee behavior, including acceptable and secure uses of technology, personal vs. leisure time, communication, and entertainment while traveling
• Eligible expenses for employees while traveling, including per diem rates if applicable
• Determine if employees will be reimbursed for their expenses or given a corporate credit card to use
• Financial tracking, record-keeping, and reimbursement processes
• Acceptable booking practices and costs, including preferred agents or vendors
• Travel insurance

Of course, policies must also be communicated and enforced to ensure compliance and fairness. Including a travel policy as part of a corporate handbook or reviewing it in an onboarding or training module can be a good way to ensure that all employees receive and understand the information. Making it easily accessible for future reference on a shared drive or company portal will encourage employees to refer to it often.

Business travel managers estimate, on average, that spending on domestic and international corporate travel is at 77% and 74%, respectively, of where it was before the COVID-19 pandemic.

Setting a Corporate Travel Policy

Corporate Business Travel Best Practices

There are many best practices that both employees and companies can keep in mind around corporate business travel to ensure that it is a successful experience. These encompass everything from administration and financing to employee behavior and well-being.

Booking Corporate Travel

Booking travel can be labor-intensive and time-consuming. To improve the booking process, save on costs, and streamline expense reporting, it can be helpful to designate preferred travel agencies, online platforms, vendors, and lodgings for employees and executives to book with. If the size of the company allows, it can also be helpful to hire an employee or team specifically to oversee and administer corporate travel, or designate this duty as part of an employee’s broader job description.

Managing Travel Expenses and Budgeting

There are many financial considerations when it comes to corporate business travel, and expenses and budgets must be carefully managed to keep costs under control. Many travel expenses are tax-deductible and can be written off, representing potentially significant savings for a company. Setting a budget and clear guidelines for employees about what can be an expense and what cannot is a must, as is creating and enforcing policies and procedures around tracking and reporting expenses.

Many corporate credit cards offer travel rewards and cost-saving opportunities for business travel, as do many other vendors and suppliers in the corporate travel industry. Businesses can take advantage of these to reduce inefficiencies and save on costs.

How to Manage Corporate Travel

Ensuring Traveler Safety and Security

As with any trip, business trips are not without safety and security risks, including the potential for political or civil unrest, crime, illness, injury, accidents, emergencies, natural disasters, cybersecurity breaches, or theft.

To protect their employees against unexpected and undesirable circumstances, at a minimum, businesses will want to have a travel insurance plan in place. It’s also helpful for businesses and employees to undertake some form of travel risk assessment to aid them in navigating potential risks, and outline safety and emergency preparedness guidelines within a corporate travel policy.

Employees should also know how to call if something goes sideways, such as hotel booking issues. A travel agent? A supervisor? If there’s a hurricane, you don’t have a car, and your flight is canceled, can you book another last-minute flight to get around the weather to get home? These details should be planned ahead for.

Maximizing Productivity During Business Trips

The overlap of business and leisure, sometimes referred to as “bleisure,” is one of the main draws of corporate business travel. However, there can also be pitfalls associated with this gray area. It can be difficult to stay productive while working remotely, whether due to the many distractions of a new environment (positive and negative), or because the trip entails an increased workload or time spent away from day-to-day job duties.

Employees looking to manage their time efficiently while away should get clarity on the intended purpose and expected outcome of their trip, and their employer’s and teammates’ expectations for their workload and communication frequency. They can also plan ahead to make the most of their travel time and downtime, and anticipate time zone differences to ensure smooth communication and adjustment to jet lag.

It’s important for employees to maintain work-life balance while traveling on behalf of work. Researching food, entertainment, and fitness options and preparing accordingly can pay off in terms of mental and physical wellness, especially for frequent travelers.

Tips for Business Travel Etiquette

Traveling anywhere, whether domestically or internationally, comes with responsibilities and expectations regarding employee behavior. Perception is one of the most important factors to remember when traveling as a representative of your company. You represent your company out in the public, so you need to ensure you’re displaying any key values that your company represents when interacting with vendors, clients, and peers.

This applies to cultural sensitivity as well. Travelers should do research in advance of their trip to ensure that they can be mindful of local customs and professional etiquette and behave with awareness and respect. Even the basics, such as learning appropriate forms of greeting or how to handle money and payment, and committing a few common words or phrases to memory can go a long way toward demonstrating good intentions and building a new relationship across cultures.

Sustainable and Responsible Business Travel

Recognizing that corporate travel can have a negative impact on the environment, many businesses and individuals are reexamining their travel practices and policies to see where they can make improvements. One example is reducing emissions by booking different means of transportation when possible. In general, seeking out vendors or companies that promote sustainable travel practices and responsible tourism, and that support local communities and ecosystems, can be a good first step to reduce environmental impact.

Technology and Tools for Corporate Business Travel

Software and technology tools can be immensely useful across all aspects of corporate business travel. Travel management and booking platforms; apps for tracking expenses, navigation, or converting currency; and translation and communication tools are all things that employees and businesses alike can take advantage of before, during, and after traveling.

When it comes to technology, it’s important to account for cybersecurity risks and only bring what is necessary to reduce the potential impact of damage, loss, or theft.

Managing Business Travel Expenses

What Is an Example of Corporate Business Travel?

There are many work-related reasons to travel, but many businesses will have their employees travel for conferences, events, sales and networking, seminars, meetings, team building, retreats, and to open up new business growth potential.

How Does Corporate Business Travel Work?

Corporate travel is simply travel for business-related purposes, so the nature of the trip will depend on its length and purpose. Companies whose employees travel frequently on behalf of the business should consider creating a corporate travel policy with information and guidelines for their employees.

Who Handles Corporate Business Travel?

Some businesses employ internal teams or individuals to manage corporate travel and business trips. At other times, employees are responsible for making their own arrangements within guidelines laid out by the company. There are also corporate travel agencies that businesses can leverage to streamline and optimize their bookings and costs.

The Bottom Line

Corporate business travel can be an invaluable path to both business growth and individual career development, building strong relationships and teams. No matter what form it takes, it’s prudent for companies to collect, implement, and communicate best practices for business travel to their employees in a company handbook or corporate travel policy. This should incorporate areas such as expense and booking management, safety and security, productivity, sustainability, technology, and employee behavior and etiquette.

Michela Buttignol / Investopedia

Internal Revenue Service. “ Understanding Business Travel Deductions .”

Global Business Travel Association. “ GBTA Business Travel Industry Outlook Poll .”

Harvard Business Review. “ How to Work and Travel at the Same Time .”

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