Any travel manager who has had to book and manage business trips without the help of a travel management company (TMC) knows this. It is not an easy task.
Endless search for suitable housing in different places. Track multiple accounts for different employees. To always ensure the safety of all traveling staff. The list of responsibilities goes on, and we haven't even started trying to stay within your company travel budget!
In this guide you will find an overview of the five best business travel companies in Scotland . We will also briefly discuss the main benefits of using travel management and the main features to look for when choosing a business.
What are the main advantages of using a travel company?
Save money and time and ensure employee safety and satisfaction. Here are the obvious benefits of using travel management.
Here are some ways that modern business travel management companies can help you get these benefits:
- Negotiate the best deals: Travel management companies can help you lower your costs by negotiating the best business travel rates for you. They can also help you build long-term partnerships with airlines and hotels to reduce future travel costs.
- Detailed reports on travel and expenses. Building your travel budget based on previous trips is the best way to cut business travel costs. To help you in this regard, travel management companies provide detailed travel and expense reports. It also collects all your travel information in one place, giving you a better view of your travel expenses and itinerary performance.
- Save time all in one place: Modern business travel management companies allow you to centralize all business travel activities. They should provide you with one easy-to-use platform that allows you to do everything from booking and complying with travel policies to managing travel security and billing.
- Self search for effectiveness. Modern travel management platforms allow your employees to organize their own travel. This means there are no misunderstandings between you and various colleagues about what to discuss and why.
- Travel Policy Enforcement : You define the travel policy for a reason; Reduce costs, simplify operations and ensure employee safety. However, employees will inevitably work outside of your travel policy. You can avoid this by using Trip Management as their platform will flag or block unauthorized bookings.
- Employee safety and satisfaction. If you want to keep your employees happy and safe while traveling, every trip must be managed efficiently and carefully. To make this task as easy as possible, today's travel management companies offer a wide range of risk management, customer service and even traveler tracking solutions.
Features to consider when choosing a travel company
Modern travel management companies can help you manage all aspects of your company's business trips with ease. But not all drive control solutions are the same!
Here are the main features to look for when choosing the solution of your choice:
- Extensive travel resources. A modern travel management platform should offer a variety of travel and accommodation options to consistently meet business travel needs. This should include the ability to book different forms of transportation such as trains and rental cars.
- Flexibility. Unfortunately, last-minute cancellations and changes are all too common in the world of business travel, so it's important to choose a travel management solution with flexible booking options.
- General customer support: If something goes wrong during a business trip, you or the traveler will need the support of your travel management company. If you can't easily reach a real person 24/7 to solve potential problems, your customer service isn't good enough.
- Central computer. One of the main reasons to use travel management is to save time and streamline operations. So, no matter what solution you choose, it should consolidate all of your monthly payments into one provider invoice.
- Reporting/data capabilities. Detailed travel/expense reports and intuitive data visualization are critical to identifying and implementing cost improvement initiatives. Modern travel management companies should always offer these features.
Top 5 Corporate Travel Management Companies in Scotland
We have selected the top five corporate travel management companies in Scotland based on the benefits and features outlined above:
1. Travel perk
TravelPerk offers a complete digital solution to help you manage all aspects of corporate travel . With TravelPerk, the entire business travel booking process is managed from start to finish on one central platform.
In addition to the ease of use of this centralized system, TravelPerk has many other features that distinguish it from others.
- The largest travel resource for airlines and accommodation providers.
- Integrated travel guides and in-app approvals – This includes approval workflows and the ability to adjust the severity level for each workflow.
- FlexiPerk, a cancellation policy that allows you to cancel your flight up to 2 hours before departure with a guaranteed refund of at least 80%.
- 24/7 customer service with real people and a 15 second response time.
- Travel Care is a travel safety and risk management solution that provides comprehensive safety alerts and information about all travel environments and related risks.
- Centralized billing system for all business trips – eliminates billing questions and claims.
- Costs, carbon emissions, etc. Flexible, easy-to-use, real-time reports including all your business travel
- A quick and painless solution to your VAT refund.
- Large catalog of third-party software integrations.
- TravelPerk Events is an event management solution that enables remote and mixed teams to connect in real life, covering everything from launch events and travel to parties.
- Carbon offset with Greenperk to help you integrate sustainability into your travel agenda.
Overall, the combination of these features creates a comprehensive travel management platform that can easily meet the business travel needs of any company, large or small.
For Scottish businesses, TravelPerk's acquisition of British business travel company Clip Travel last year makes it a particularly suitable option as the platform is already well established in the UK.
Find out how TravelPerk takes the stress out of business travel
2. Traveling with a tie
EQ Travel is a corporate travel management company founded in 2011 and headquartered in Denfermline, Scotland.
Key Features of EQ Journey:
- Book flights, trains, hotels, apartments and cars.
- An online booking platform with the ability to integrate travel policy.
- 24/7 emergency contact, complete with EQ team.
- Custom travel management reports including risk management reports.
- Conference and event management.
- Incentive trips (trips to your company's best employees).
- Travel to clinical trials.
- Additional services such as driver rental, currency exchange, ferry, passport and visa, airport parking, plane rental and private jets.
EQ Travel offers many useful features for travel booking, but it is not a comprehensive travel management service. It does not offer any centralized expense management or billing solutions, nor does it offer key features such as flexible cancellations, VAT refunds, third-party software integration or a carbon offset program.
It also uses Concur as its booking platform, which has received many comments online that its user interface is not user-friendly.
3. Stuart Travel Management
In the year Established in 1972, Stewart Travel Management is an experienced travel management company headquartered in Glasgow.
Although Stewart Travel Management is not only in the business travel sector, Stewart Travel Management has a lot to offer its corporate clients.
- Flight, hotel, train, ferry and car booking.
- A global airline ticketing platform that offers the best ticket prices for over 900 airlines in over 51 countries.
- Online booking portal with travel policy integration.
- 24/7 emergency service.
- Personal account manager.
- Special team for organizing meetings and events.
- Personal driving report with trip information on request.
- Flexible payment solutions (including credit terms).
- Traveler Tracking – Stewart Travel Management can instantly track all travelers in a specific area and contact them via email or SMS.
- Private chauffeur service, visa/passport service, airport lounge, transfers and parking.
- Sea and ocean prices.
Stewart Travel Management has a good set of features but lacks key solutions such as flexible cancellation, VAT refunds and carbon offsets.
4. Edinburgh Travel Company
Travel Company Edinburgh is an independent travel agency with over 30 years experience in the travel industry.
They offer vacation and honeymoon as well as business travel management services. For business, Travel Company Edinburgh offers several solutions:
- Airline, hotel, train, ferry and car rental.
- Account management.
- Travel policy management (including recommendations to improve compliance).
- Managing meetings, promotions, conferences and events.
- Monitor travelers with 24/7 emergency services.
- Comprehensive multilevel management information and some current reports available on the Internet.
- Review the discussion process.
- Save costs by planning and implementing cost reductions.
- Monthly bills. Edinburgh Travel will bill you on your behalf and bill you once a month. You can also arrange to pay for meals and additional hotel services so that your employees don't have to pay early and claim compensation later.
Edinburgh Travel Company offers a wide range of services covering a wide range of travel services, but also caters to corporate clients. If you're looking for a comprehensive digital solution, you won't find it here. Edinburgh Travel Company provides one central platform for overall booking and travel management. The service they provide is like a traditional offline service.
5. Travel STME
Headquartered in London, Travel CTM was established in 1994 and specializes in customized travel solutions for its clients.
Key features of Travel CTM include:
- All types of transportation are covered.
- Unique strategic account manager.
- A convenient online booking tool with built-in approval workflows and travel policy integration.
- Customer-focused travel technologies, incl Threaded travel kit.
- Event management.
- Local support for emergency travel in the afternoon.
- Follow the travelers.
- Business solutions - for event travel, sports travel and corporate risk management (energy, resources and cruise).
- Carbon reporting and offsetting.
- Travel safety report.
Travel CTM is a modern enterprise travel management solution with useful customizable features. However, the platform has limited integration with third-party software, cannot ensure 100% travel policy compliance, and does not offer flexible cancellation/travel solutions.
If you are based in Scotland and are looking for a travel management solution to help your company grow, there are many great options. If you're looking for a great value all-in-one package solution, TravelPerk can deliver more than a bargain. If you'd like to learn more about how TravelPerk can improve your business travel program, take advantage of our free demo today.
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