Focus on advance purchasing in the hunt for savings, says Gray Dawes

Journey prices are rising on account of inflation, oil worth will increase and wage hikes pushed by an industry-wide expertise crunch, however there are a number of mechanisms that journey managers can put in place to manage spend and return to the halcyon days of 2019, based on Warren Dix, chief industrial officer at UK-based journey administration firm, Grey Dawes.

To carry journey spend down and return to 2019 ranges, firms want to scale back prices by 14 per cent, Dix mentioned whereas assessing air fare will increase during the last three years throughout a webinar hosted by the TMC on Thursday (13 October).

The ‘key pillars’ to driving down price, based on Dix, are on-line adoption, superior buying, managing ticket flexibility, sturdy approval processes to make sure compliance with journey coverage, implementing a lodge programme with negotiated charges, and frequently reviewing coverage.

“Be sure to have full entry to NDC content material inside your reserving software or through your TMC as a result of we by no means need a traveller to say ‘I can discover a cheaper flight on the web’,” he mentioned.

To profit from a lodge programme, Dix really helpful specializing in a concise variety of accommodations, driving spend to 2 or three accommodations per location, as a way to negotiate higher charges.  

Buying air tickets prematurely may also create appreciable financial savings, based on Dix. Reserving a long-haul journey 21 days prematurely, as an alternative of every week previous to journey, can save as much as 57 per cent of price. Inside Europe, if a long-haul air ticket is booked 14 days prematurely as an alternative of seven days, firms can save roughly 37 per cent. 

“These are actually massive numbers once we speak about financial savings,” he mentioned.

Dix suggested reserving a non-refundable ticket moderately than a fully-flexible fare as this will save as much as 73 per cent on long-haul flights. And in circumstances the place cancellation is a chance, financial savings can nonetheless be made as a result of “for the price of fully-flexible ticket you may e book three non-refundable tickets”. On the subject of rail, reserving two advance single fares moderately than a return fare may also scale back prices.

“You simply need to be organised about it,” mentioned David Oates, group procurement director at building firm Wates Group, which has a 95 per cent on-line adoption fee amongst its travellers and a directive in the direction of advance bookings.

Speaking the advantages behind new buying processes may also assist to beat traveller push-back.

“We simply deal with [travel] as one other class of spend, and we attempt to implement the identical rules throughout all our classes,” Oates mentioned.

To ease strain on travellers, Dix suggested implementing one or two modifications as an alternative of tackling the whole journey funds.

“Somewhat than attacking everybody within the journey programme, goal 36 per cent of your general journey programme,” he mentioned, “it will get you again to an inexpensive state of play“.

“With the right administration inclination and good analytics, you can begin to focus on completely different teams or price centres inside your organisation,” he added.

“There are financial savings to be made, however you need to be keen and in a position to do it.”