5 Steps to Start a Corporate Travel Program for Your Company 

Step 1: Assess your company's travel needs. 

What is the airport closest to headquarters? How many travelers are you booking for? Do they have pre-existing travel patterns? What’s your company’s budget for trips, and how much can be allotted to transportation? These are examples of questions to explore before creating your policy. 

Step 2: Set clear travel policies. 

Your policy should reflect the culture of your company and can take any form, whether it’s a loose list of best practices or documented written rules. Just make sure that you’re consistent with what’s allowed for each trip and employee, and that you can easily manage cost within the policy you’ve set up.  

Consider the needs you explored in Step 1, and what travel perks or upgrades are allowed with your policy. Also consider other situations— how strict is your policy? In what emergencies does your policy allow for exceptions? Note these answers down as you start to build out your guidelines. 

Step 3: Select a travel management partner.  

Partnering with an airline or travel management agency helps teams manage bookings and get discounts. By having a platform or a representative to assist in planning, you can cut down risk during trickier parts of travel. Platforms like the United for Business portal are built to fit the needs of small and midsized businesses by offering discounts, reporting, and customized booking options in one place. 

Step 4: Implement an expense management system. 

Expense management systems are necessary for streamlining reimbursement and tracking trip costs. Many travel management platforms connect directly to your expense providers. Even if you don’t have an expense provider, systems like the United for Business portal allow you to easily email receipts for your team’s business trips and get reports on travel spend. 

Make sure to partner with an agency or airline that offers solutions like expense tracking and loyalty programs, so your company can optimize cost on trips. Plus, make sure expense receipts and reports are easily accessible for downloading. Giving employees easy access to expense systems during business trips is key— not only does this help maintain transparency, it also makes financing company travel easier on all stakeholders. 

Step 5: Educate and engage employees. 

Traveling for work should be stress-free, but without insight into benefits and safety, it can feel stressful. This is why once your policy is done, it should be communicated with employees to ensure them that they’re in good hands. This engagement can look like anything: a pamphlet breaking down policy rules, a video tutorial on how to track expenses, or even short sessions that provide a space to ask questions and give feedback.