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If you are a frequent business traveler or a travel manager for an organization, you will likely use an online booking tool or OBT when you book travel for work. However, not all OBTs are the same, and some booking solutions could suit your business better than others. So what different kinds of online reservation tools are there, and what benefits can using the latest travel technology bring? When choosing the right OBT for your company, what features are helpful, and what pitfalls should you look out for? What are the different types of online booking tools? 1. Booking direct The most obvious online booking tool is the reservation systems that many travel products such as hotels, airlines, train operators, and rental car companies have online for clients to book their services directly. 2. Corporate travel booking tools Business travel booking sites are the most useful for frequent business travelers.
Designed specifically with businesses in mind, corporate OBTs like TravelPerk, aim to streamline users' workflow from the booking process to expense management and generating reports. 3. Travel merchants A travel merchant Special Data books a range of travel elements, including flights, hotel stays, and car rentals, and then resells them to travelers looking for the same arrangements. The most well-known example of an online booking platform operating on a travel merchant business model is Expedia. 4. Travel agencies Booking.com is perhaps the best-known online travel agency. Like travel management companies or TMCs, online travel agencies take a client's inquiry and provide them with various options from their inventory of travel products. 5. Aggregator websites Aggregators are different in that they don't have their own contracts for travel services. They are essentially search engines that pull through information from various sites based on the parameters a user enters.
For example, a booking engine like Kayak.com will scour hundreds of other travel suppliers to find you a hotel booking for your business trip to London. What are the benefits of using an online booking tool for corporate travel planning? They help boost compliance. Incorporating your business travel policy into an online booking tool naturally improves compliance. Travel managers can easily define the boundaries of their policy and establish automated trip approval systems for any exceptions. Rather than being buried in their inbox, policies inform the options corporate travelers are offered in the booking process. This doesn't just save time. It also means employees can choose their travel reservations freely, safe in the knowledge that they are compliant. They give travelers more flexibility. In business, there are many moving parts, especially when it comes to corporate travel. Meetings get canceled, or there’s an office emergency, and you need to cut your trip short. We know there’s a host of reasons why corporate travel arrangements need to be flexible. That's why our FlexiPerk users can choose from a range of hotels and transport options with the assurance that they can cancel if their plans change. They increase business traveler's satisfaction.
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