Tour and Travel Management

Tour – a visit to a place or area, esp. one during which you look around the place or area and
learn about it: a walking tour. a sightseeing tour.

Travel & Tour Management – a course that is modeled around the core principles of the
tourism industry and theoretical knowledge. Also, this course gives practical knowledge on
designing, promoting, and reservation of tourism products and administration in the travel
industry.

Tour and Travel Management – including agencies and companies that facilitate the customers
with travel itineraries that help complete a tour guide and plan. The travel management company
also helps throw some of the best deals at you according to your preference. Services like
booking flights, comparing hotel deals, and prioritizing your diet charts are priorities for better
engagement.

What is Travel Management?

 Travel management is a specialist, which is based on organizing corporate travel,

tracking your various travel expenses, and devising a comprehensive travel strategy. As a
discipline, it is intended to help businesses and their employees to optimize the way they
deal with their travel needs. This means making sure everything is handled properly
while minimizing any negative impact on things like productivity and financial results.

What is the responsibility of tour management?

 Their job is to make sure everything runs smoothly, which usually means arranging travel
plans, coordinating with venues, managing money, facilitating media interactions, and
scoping out local services at each tour stop.

What Are the Benefits of Travel Management for Companies?

 A major benefit of travel management is the ability to reduce costs associated with travel.
This can include everything from airline tickets to hotel room rates and travel insurance.
Generally, travel management specialists will have industry contacts and enough
experience to find or negotiate the best deals. By handing responsibility for this to a
dedicated travel manager, or a travel management team, individual employees can also
spend far more of their time doing core day-to-day tasks and less time planning trips.

 Once a travel strategy is in place, those offering travel management services can also help
you to continually improve that strategy, by reporting on your business travel expenses
and suggesting useful changes.

In-House Travel Agents vs. External Travel Agents

  There are two main approaches that businesses can take: handling travel management in-
house or outsourcing it to an external travel agency, and both approaches have their
advantages and disadvantages.

In-House Travel Agent

 Using an in-house travel agent for travel management purposes means that responsibility
for managing your travel strategy stays within your own business. You will either employ
someone specifically for the role, or somebody who is already under your employment
will take on these responsibilities. In terms of advantages, this allows you to scrutinize
the work of the travel agent more easily than with an external agent, and you also avoid
paying the commission or subscription fee an external agent would demand. On the other
hand, you either need to employ someone for the role or have a current employee
dividing their time.

External Corporate Travel Agencies

 The alternative is to work with an external corporate travel management agency. This
means outsourcing responsibility for travel management to another business that
specializes in this discipline. You will not employ the person managing your travel
strategy, but you will pay them, either via a commission on bookings or via a
subscription fee. Advantages of this approach include freeing up your own employees to
do other things and gaining expert insight from a company that solely focuses on travel
management. There is also the likelihood of obtaining cheaper travel rates. It can,
however, be harder to scrutinize the precise work they do, so a level of trust is required.

What Are the Tasks of a Travel Agent?

 Regardless of whether you employ a travel manager or agent, or opt to outsource to an

external company, the core tasks will be very similar. Some of the most important
functions and responsibilities are explained below:

1. Travel Planning

On a basic level, business travel needs to be planned ahead of time, so that all bases are covered.
This involves, among other things, selecting the right dates for travel, as well as identifying the
best times for flights, the best location for accommodation, whether or not airport transfers are
needed, and so on.

Leaving travel planning in the capable hands of a travel manager, or travel management
company, will help to ensure nothing is forgotten. Their in-depth knowledge of the travel
industry can also be invaluable.

2. Negotiation
A large part of corporate travel management involves organizing business travel for the best
possible price. In order to achieve this, negotiation is likely to be needed with a variety of
different vendors. Travel management companies are ideally equipped to handle this
responsibility because their staff will be experienced in negotiations. They are also much more
likely to have close contacts in different parts of the travel industry, allowing them to secure
special rates that might otherwise be unattainable to you.

3. Arranging Accommodation

Another key responsibility when managing travel arrangements is organizing suitable

accommodations for business travellers. This means looking at all of the available options,
including hotels, bed and breakfasts, and shared accommodations. It also means booking the
right number of rooms, for the right time and number of days, at the right price. When companies
have insufficient time, they tend to simply look for cheap accommodation or accommodation in
the right location. However, a travel manager will be able to take the time to weigh up all of the
different needs, assess them, and find accommodation that ticks as many boxes as possible, while
staying under budget.

4. Transportation

Transportation forms a huge part of travel planning, and a good travel management company or
professional can help you by handling all of your transportation needs in advance. This could
include things like booking flights, securing a rental car, arranging airport transfers, purchasing
train tickets, or booking discount travel passes. Optimizing your corporate travel strategy
requires all of these things to be organized in advance, for the best possible price, while
guaranteeing all business travellers get to where they need to be on time.

5. Meeting and Event Planning

Generally, business travel will be centered on attending meetings or business events and there is
plenty of work that goes into organizing this. For example, you will need to make sure
everybody attending an event has the right credentials to get in and that they know where they
are going and what they are doing. If you are actually hosting the business event, the planning
process becomes even more complicated. Either way, high-quality travel management services
will be beneficial, helping you to cope with the logistical side.

6. Manage Travel Expenses

Finally, management of travel expenses is arguably the main part of the job, and a professional
travel manager will be far better equipped to handle this than someone with no real experience in
the role. Indeed, good travel management companies will help you to simplify expenses, so that
accommodation and extras all come under one bill. Working with a professional company can
also help you to manage your company finances. Consolidated financial reports make for easier
reading and your travel manager can analyze these reports and pinpoint areas for improvement.
How Travel Companies Can Benefit From Travel Management Companies

In today’s globalized world, regular corporate travel is now a simple fact of life for many
organizations. However, it is also becoming more common for businesses to turn to corporate
travel agents or professional travel management companies for assistance. An agent can then
help a business to optimize its travel strategy in a number of ways, often by taking on
responsibility for booking flights, car rentals, accommodation, and events. For hotel owners, this
means corporate travel agents serve as an invaluable link to business travellers. In order to
actually book accommodation, flights, and transportation for business clients, most corporate
travel agents will turn to a global distribution system or GDS system for short. With this in mind,
it is important that companies operating in the travel industry like airlines, car rentals, or hotels
looking to maximize their appeal to business travellers also connect with the main GDS systems.
Doing so will then allow travel agents to access real-time information about for example hotel
room rates and availability, increasing the chances that they turn to your hotel for their business
travel needs and boosting your revenue in the process. Our “Global Distribution System (GDS):
What Are the Benefits for Hotels?“ article provides more information about the main GDS
systems, how they actually work, and the ways they can be of benefit to companies operating in
the travel industry.

List of Travel Management Companies

A growing number of companies are outsourcing responsibility for managing business travel to
travel management companies, benefiting from their industry contacts, specialist knowledge and
24/7 support in the process. For hotels, connecting with the global distribution systems these
travel agents use can help to attract more business travel guests. In the article “Corporate Travel
Agents for Hotels to Gain More Business Travellers”, you will learn more about the role of
corporate travel agents, find out why companies are increasingly outsourcing travel management
to them, and gain an understanding of why these travel agents are valuable for hotels looking to
attract business travellers.

Corporate travel is a key component of running a modern business and, along with salaries and
marketing costs, represents one of the largest expenses too. For this reason, it is imperative that
you get the most value for your money. Travel management can assist with this, while also
ensuring all logistical elements are handled properly.

Tips Regarding Corporate Travel

The corporate travel market is receiving an increased focus from many in the travel industry;
partly business travellers often spend more money on their travels, especially when their costs
are covered by their employers. However, more importantly, business travel is growing, thanks
to factors like globalization and the availability of flights. In the following articles, you find
more information about the corporate travel market:

 Tips to Attract More Corporate Travellers to Your Hotel

 The Latest Business Travel Trends Business Travellers Desire

 Reasons Why Companies Should Use a Business Travel Agency

 How to Select a Good Business Travel Management Company?