How do You Know if Your Company has Outgrown DIY Travel Management?
As your business scales, so too do the demands and complexities of your travel programme. What may begin as a simple process – a few employees independently booking their own flights, a one-night stay at a hotel – can quickly become unmanageable.
Without proper management, your business may miss out on travel discounts and negotiated rates. Employees may unknowingly book outside of your company’s travel policy, exposing you to financial risk. The safety of your travellers becomes more difficult as your team grows and your travel process does not.
At a certain point, the “do-it-yourself” approach to travel management simply stops being sustainable. That’s where a Travel Management Company (TMC) proves invaluable. A good TMC can bring structure and expertise to your corporate travel program, offering you access to better rates, all-in-one booking and tracking tools, and constant traveller support.
But how do you know when your business has reached the point of needing a TMC? In this article, we explore the key indicators that signal your company is ready to take the next step in its corporate travel programme by transitioning away from ad hoc travel planning.
1
Your Travel Spend is Growing, But Visibility Isn’t
As your business travel increases, so too does the complexity of managing it. What may have once been a manageable number of trips has now ballooned into a stream of bookings, scattered invoices, and expense reports coming from all angles. Without a centralised view of your travel spend, you lose the ability to forecast future budgets, and it becomes nearly impossible to answer even basic questions like: Where is our money going?
Ask yourself:
- Can you quickly identify your top travel destinations and categories of spend?
- Do you know which travel vendors consistently offer the best value?
- Are your employees booking through different channels without any oversight or policy enforcement?
A Travel Management Company (TMC) can help solve this problems by consolidating all your travel data into a single platform. With advanced reporting dashboards and analytics tools, such as with Gray Dawes’ YourData platform, you can easily identify your top destinations, high-spend departments, and frequent travellers.
2
You’re Spending Too Much Time on
Travel Admin
If you or your employees are spending hours juggling flight bookings, hotel changes, last-minute cancellations, and travel expense tracking, it’s a clear sign your travel programme is operating inefficiently. When managing business travel becomes a time-consuming side job for non-specialist staff, it drains productivity and leads to costly mistakes, missed savings, and employee frustration.
Ask yourself:
- Are frequent disruptions or re-bookings causing workflow interruptions?
- Is manual data entry required to reconcile travel expenses or generate reports?
- Are your employees unsure who to contact when travel plans change?
A TMC can streamline the entire travel process with automated booking tools and real-time travel updates, lifting the burden from your internal teams. Better yet, when plans inevitably change – whether that be because of delayed flights or cancelled meetings – travellers can get in touch with a travel expert around the clock. No more panicked Teams messages or late-night calls to the office manager.
That’s why at Gray Dawes, we are ALWAYS ON. With wholly-owned offices located across the UK, USA, Australia, and the Netherlands, we are always there for our clients no matter where or when they are in the world. That means the same personal service, the same streamlined travel tech, and the same level of personal care no matter where business takes you.
3
You Don’t Have (or Can’t Enforce) a Travel Policy
If your employees are booking trips on their own terms and choosing airlines or routes based on personal preference rather than company guidelines, it’s a sign that your travel policy is either unclear, unenforced, or non-existent. The result? Disjointed travel plans, increased exposure to risk, and a complete lack of visibility into your organisation’s travel behaviours.
Ask yourself:
- Are employees ignoring approval processes, leading to out-of-policy spend?
- Are travellers choosing non-preferred suppliers and missing out on negotiated rates?
- When it comes to flights, are employees booking in premium cabins when economy would suffice?
A TMC doesn’t just help you create a travel policy; it works hard to make it stick. With the support of travel experts, you can more easily design a structured and easy-to-follow travel policy that aligns with your business goals. It should become a living part of your travel ecosystem that supports smarter decisions, leads to safer journeys, and increases ROI across the board.
We know our clients inside and out. It’s all part of our personal, High Touch service. We become a living and breathing extension of your organisation and leave no stone unturned in our mission to understand you, your travellers, and the culture and objectives of your business. That way we can build a travel programme that is perfectly tailored to you.
4
Traveller Safety and Duty of Care is Becoming a Concern
Today’s world is unpredictable. Whether it’s geopolitical instability, natural disasters, global pandemics, or even something as simple – but just as disruptive – as a lost passport, your business holds a duty of care to travelling employees. Failing to plan for the unexpected doesn’t just put people at risk, it exposes your company to significant legal and financial consequences.
Ask yourself:
- Can you quickly identify your top travel destinations and categories of spend?
- Are you always aware of where your travellers are?
- Do you have emergency travel response protocols for when things don’t go as planned?
A TMC can help support and protect your travellers in numerous ways. Traveller tracking tech, such as Gray Dawes’ TripSure, provides users with current traveller locations, risk alerts, and flight statuses. Any TMC worth its salt will also have business travel consultants trained in navigating crises the moment they arise.
5
You’re Missing Out on Savings
At first glance, unmanaged or loosely managed travel might seem more cost-effective. But in reality, it often leads to hidden expenses that quietly accumulate over time, creating inefficiencies that go unnoticed until they start significantly impacting your bottom line.
Without a centralised travel strategy, employees may book last-minute trips, bypass preferred suppliers, or overlook loyalty rewards that could benefit both them and your organisation. Add to that inconsistent policy compliance and a lack of visibility into overall spend, and what you have is a travel programme leaking money in ways that are difficult to track… or fix.
Ask yourself:
- Are you spending more money than you need to on business travel?
- Do you know how much of your travel spend is outside of policy or off-platform?
- Are your employees missing out on negotiated rates or loyalty points?
While a TMC can save you money through specially negotiated rates and supplier relationships, it’s the access to high-quality travel content that makes a huge difference. By aggregating fares and rates from multiple global sources, including GDS, NDC, and traditional web rates, a TMC can ensure your travellers see the widest range of options at the most competitive prices. This means better value on flights, more choice in accommodation types, and the ability to compare content side-by-side for smarter decision-making.
All your favourite brands. All in one place. All tailored to you. At Gray Dawes, our High Content promise means our clients get access to the widest range of travel content from Booking.com, Expedia, NDC, direct suppliers, and traditional GDS, and more. It’s all about offering quality and quantity all in one place.
6
Your Organisation is Rapidly Expanding Across the Globe
Growth is exciting, but it also brings complexity. As your business begins operating in new regions or sending teams across borders, managing travel manually becomes increasingly difficult. International travel involves more than just booking flights. It requires navigating visa requirements, understanding local regulations, managing currency variations, and ensuring policy compliance across multiple geographies. Without a cohesive strategy in place, these challenges can quickly lead to inconsistent traveller experiences, compliance risks, and spiralling costs.
Ask yourself:
- Are you struggling to manage travel across multiple regions or time zones?
- Do your employees have different travel experiences depending on where they’re based?
- Are you confident your international travel complies with local regulations and policies?
A TMC helps you scale with confidence. With on-the-ground expertise in global markets, a TMC can guide your team through regional nuances, offering support with visas, local travel laws, duty of care requirements, and cost-efficient routing. Even better, a TMC ensures that no matter where your employees are based, they benefit from a consistent, high-quality travel experience that aligns with your global strategy and brand values.
Related Articles
7 Things We Learned From the BTA Rail Whitepaper
We highlight the key findings of the BTA’s recent report into the British rail infrastructure, and explore their recommendations for creating a more integrated, efficient, and business-friendly rail transport system that supports long-term economic and environmental goals.
How to Handle Business Travel in a Crisis
In a perfect world, business travel plans would unfold exactly as they’re supposed to. Reality, however, is far less predictable and crises such as natural disasters, political unrest, or sudden logistical changes can flip a business trip on its head. In this article, we speak to James Challis, Operations Manager at Gray Dawes, about the importance of keeping travellers informed, the benefits of having a well-oiled response strategy, and the power of our TripSure app in keeping travellers safe.
A Day In The Life of the Head of IT Operations
It wouldn’t be too outlandish to suggest that Colin’s IT career started in the seaside arcades of Margate. Now Head of IT Operations at Gray Dawes, Colin has had a long and varied career defined by the rapidly changing face of technology. In this article, we chat with Colin about his day-to-day responsibilities as the Head of IT Operations at Gray Dawes Travel, his ultimate career highlights, and what it takes to be a leader in the industry.
HOOFDKANTOOR
Valreep 13
Amsterdam, Nederland
BEL ONS
088-1201901
EMAIL ONS
ALTIJD BEREIKBAAR
Neem contact met ons op
Heeft u een vraag of wilt u meer informatie over onze diensten? Laat uw gegevens achter en één van onze medewerkers neemt zo snel mogelijk contact met u op.