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After the COVID-19 crisis, business travel was back with a bang in 2022 and is set to increase during 2023.
While Zoom is here to stay, most companies recognise the importance of face-to-face meetings – after all, nothing closes a business deal like a handshake!
Yes, business travel budgets are big business and, if well-managed, can become a key benefit and motivator for employees.
Corporate travel is not a ‘one size fits all’ deal, though, as it comes in all different shapes, sizes and purposes. From developing a business relationship or partnership to promoting your products and services, the different types of business travel each have their own distinct features and benefits.
Here are a few of the different reasons your employees will need to travel for their work, and an overview of the particular benefits and challenges inherent in each.
Today, companies are putting more and more effort into building a sense of team and seeking to engage their employees. Exciting company retreats far away from the workplace are an excellent opportunity to reaffirm your company’s values, build relationships and pull together as a team.
Creativity and innovation require a ‘change’ mindset, so what better way to break out of any ‘rut’ your teams might be stuck in than to whisk them away somewhere completely different?
The key to a successful company retreat is organisation – especially if it involves travel. Getting there, accommodation, meals, activities, etc. all need to be well thought out in advance. If you want your employees to feel valued, motivated and inspired, you don’t want to subject them to lengthy, difficult travel routes or dodgy accommodation and food.
A good company retreat will require some investment on your part, but the good news is that it might be more affordable than you think. Many popular team-building spots offer excellent group rates for business customers. And there are many corporate travel agencies and specialist retreat organisers that can help your money go further.
Bleisure travel is becoming increasingly popular. It refers to the addition of an opportunity for leisure time added to a business trip. By offering your employees the chance to enjoy some leisure time during a business trip, you’ll make business trips more appealing, and your employees will be motivated to go on them.
They’ll also be more focused during the work part of the trip, rather than thinking about fitting time into the schedule to do some sightseeing.
Bleisure travel is essentially an employee benefit that costs the company nothing, as employees generally pay for the leisure part of the trip themselves.
The only additional investment is the time to coordinate the details with the employee. With more and more people now able to work remotely, allowing your employees to turn their business trip into a bleisure trip doesn’t even need to imply using their holiday allocation.
If the trip is towards the beginning of the week, staff members can stay working remotely and then have the weekend to explore the destination. So, if your company regularly sends people on business trips, make sure you amend your travel policy to include bleisure travel!
The rise of globalisation and the internet has led to more and more companies seeking clients who are not even in the same country, let alone city.
Companies often work primarily remotely with their customers. Engaging and maintaining a relationship with them requires some in-person interaction to achieve closer contact. This ensures a better long-term relationship.
So, whether it’s heading to the other side of the city, the country or the globe, most companies will find themselves dedicating a portion of their travel budget to client travels or meetings.
Finding the most cost-effective way to get your employees to your clients will be the first thing you think about. You’ll probably also want to consider sustainability issues, so apart from the traditional ‘Planes, Trains and Automobiles’, you might also include electric vehicles, eMopeds and eScooters. You’ll also need to consider where your employees meet the client. For whatever reason, meeting at the client's premises may not be appropriate or desirable, so you might consider a coffee shop or restaurant. If privacy is an issue, hire a conference room in a hotel or use one of the many co-working spaces that are springing up in cities.
Another big part of business travel is conferences and trade fairs. They are excellent ways for companies to network, promote their products and services and ensure that their employees are kept up-to-date with the latest developments in the sector.
Conferences and trade fairs can often involve quite a big investment, but many companies find that this pays off in the long run. It’s probably why these types of events have mushroomed over the past few years. Many still found a way to keep going remotely during the pandemic, but were very quick to revert to in-person as soon as they could.
Much of the organisation for these kinds of trips can be undertaken by the conference organisers, e.g. accommodation, meals, transfers, etc.
However, companies that want to keep a strict eye on their budget might choose to organise these aspects themselves. If you’re thinking about sending one or two employees, or even a whole team to a conference, you might want to consider combining it with an opportunity for bleisure or even a company retreat.
Today, business travel does not only involve short business trips. Many large companies have offices all over the world and regularly transfer employees between them for varying periods of time.
In very specialist and niche sectors, some companies provide support to clients in other cities and countries, which can often require staff to relocate for a period of time. If your business involves this type of offshore work, your travel budget will likely include paying for transport, accommodation, and perhaps even meals for the employees you send elsewhere.
When developing a travel policy, you’ll want to consider:
Cost
Distance
Sustainability
Accessibility
Number of travellers
Depending on the requirements listed above, here are the different transport options available.
Company cars – for companies whose employees regularly travel around their local area or country, providing a company car has long been seen as the solution.
This might be a fleet car that bears the company logo and is used only for business journeys. It’s an option that requires fewer vehicles and provides additional advertising, but things can get complicated if multiple staff members need to use the same car on a particular day.
The other option is providing a personal company car as an employee benefit, but this has always proved a headache when sorting out tax issues.
Either way, when you factor in maintenance costs and depreciation, company cars rarely make financial sense overall, so more companies are veering away from using them.
Public transport – this is an environmentally-friendly option and generally works out cheaper than owning a fleet of company cars.
It’s not often a preferred choice, as navigating timetables, travelling at rush hour, limited routes and potential unreliability of services can make public transport extremely stressful for employees.
Taxis – taxis generally provide a quick and direct way to get your employees where they need to go.
In cities, it’s usually quite easy to hail a cab or call a taxi firm to arrange a pick up. And employees can use the time travelling to catch-up on their emails and messages, make an important phone call or prepare for the upcoming meeting.
Hailing a cab on the street can work out very expensive, though, and employees often have to pay out their own money and then claim back the expenses, which can be a hassle.
Mobility apps – using a mobility app like FREENOW, is a great way of combining public transport, taxis and private hire vehicles, as well as other innovative and sustainable options like eMopeds and eScooters.
The beauty of a mobility app is having all the different transport options in one place, so your employees can easily work out the best way to get from one point to another - saving time and effort.
It also allows you to keep track of all business travel in one place and quickly compares prices from different vendors to make sure you’re making the most of your budget. What’s more, all travel expenses are centralised, with detailed expense reports and one monthly invoice, making processing expenses easy and avoiding the need for your employees to fork out their own money.
With FREENOW’s Mobility Budget, you can also give your employees a benefit that rivals having their own company car. They get a monthly budget to spend on their personal travel, whether that’s commuting, nights out or holidays.
On top of that, FREENOW helps you achieve your sustainability targets with the largest fleet of electric and zero-emission transport in Europe. Its powerful software also tracks each employee’s carbon footprint and provides detailed CO2 reports to help power your CSR strategy.
A mobility app like FREENOW can help you save time and money, make life easier for your employees when they’re travelling, see all your business travel in real-time and make processing travel expenses hassle-free.
Although different countries will have slightly different rules, business travel expenses are tax deductible. As with all business expenses, travel expenses must meet the specific tax requirements in your home country to qualify as tax-free.
When sending your employees on business trips, you can usually claim tax relief on expenses that fall into the following categories:
Public transport costs
Hotel accommodation
Food and drink
Congestion charges and tolls
Parking fees
Business phone calls and printing costs
Mileage (if using a private or company car)
So what counts as business travel? Generally, business travel can be defined as: travel other than an employee’s commute to and from their permanent workplace. So, if your employees need to make journeys to various sites that are not considered their permanent workplace or travel to a specific location or temporary workplace outside of their regular commute, then this qualifies as business travel.
Tax regulations differ from country to country, so companies need to make sure they understand their own specific rules. Still, something to be aware of is that some expenses like mileage and meals may have fixed rates.
A good rule of thumb when working out if you can claim for a trip is to ask yourself: ‘Have these expenses been wholly and exclusively incurred for the purposes of running the business or generating more business?’ If the answer is yes, you can probably claim, but as with all tax-related issues, it’s a good idea to check with an accountant!
