Efficiency in Business Travel Reporting
Data can be overwhelming. And that might even be putting it mildly. Luckily, Carrousel can help.
The long and short of it: robust data sets doesn’t do anyone any good unless you have ways to interpret it and turn it into something informative and actionable. For a lot of TMC tools, the data is available… but the reporting isn’t quite straightforward enough for users to make sense of without intense study. Some TMCs act like gatekeepers to your own data. Carrousel helps you access and make sense of it.
Key Performance Indicators & Metrics
Before we dive too deep into the nitty gritty of analyzing data sets, let’s first determine what’s important to track. Travelstop Blog lists seven corporate travel categories that are key across industries. Some of these might be more familiar than others; start with those on which your organization has a primary focus, and from there, determine what metrics are applicable.
- Spend and savings
Relevant metrics to track might include: booking spend, average number of bookings/month, number of bookings via channel, month-to-month changes in bookings/channel - Traveler behavior and policy
Relevant metrics to track might include: total spend in and outside the travel policy, average ticket price, month-to-month compliance (and non-compliance) - Suppliers
Relevant metrics to track might include: traveler attrition rate, utilization of booking rate tools - Process
Relevant metrics to track might include: longest/shortest reimbursement times, reimbursement time/department, average days for reimbursement by month or quarter - Safety
Relevant metrics to track might include: completion rates/traveler, completion rate/department - Corporate social responsibility
Relevant metrics to track might include: travelers by location data, trends/insights by location
These different metrics should focus on data quality and tell the story of your investment in the travel policy as well as indicate what needs to change. ROI is a complex calculation that doesn’t have a single equation for every organization. Dividing net profit by investment can get you a number, but there’s a lot more that goes into it. Relevant metrics to consider, in addition to the above, might include net profit per customer/lead, total trip investment, and the cost of the booking tool vs. savings generated by the tool.
Like we said, it can be overwhelming. But clients of Carrousel Travel aren’t acting alone. Account managers on our team can help interpret your data and make reports that are transparent and provide insight. Additionally, we also prepare a kind of peer review of all organizations and share that with clients as well to aid understanding even more deeply. We believe in visibility and transparency. And with 400+ data sets available through our tools, a little translation can go a long way.