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Follow our step-by-step guide to getting more of your travellers booking online and keeping costs down

The use of self booking tools (SBTs) to drive cost savings is well established. The theory of ‘visual guilt’ is a proven phenomenon, driving savings of over 100 euros per air ticket and reducing agency transaction fees by 50 per cent on average. Even with this demon-strated success, the majority of corporations with SBTs don’t maximise use of travel automation – leaving thousands of travel pounds on the table. “Historically, difficult economic times have served to push SBT usage farther down the maturation path,” says Annette Forbes-Marsden, director of sales and marketing, EMEA, at GetThere. “Given the pressure that managers are under to move the needle on use of travel automation, there are proven steps they can take to make the leap from mid-range adoption to best in class.” Read on for her six steps to improving online adoption.

STEP 1: Set adoption goals and savings metrics. Companies must be committed to online booking and have established appropriate cost savings mechanisms to realise adoption goals. Setting achievable online adoption goals is key to tracking the success of your online travel programme and gaining the confidence and support of senior executives.

This also applies to the long-time challenge of capturing meeting spend. Today’s meetings management tools are remarkably refined, with seamless connections to SBTs to drive policy-compliant booking. With good metrics and goals in place, the ability to capture savings should be a lot easier.

STEP 2:Decide on the best adoption strategy. Mandating the use of an online booking site has become best practice for companies that want to quickly drive adoption and lower travel costs. While full mandates may be over the top in some corporate cultures, partial mandates can drive immediate benefits while laying the foundation to increase this in future.

For example, many companies implement partial mandates for simple round-trip bookings, or top city pairs. For the best results, involve your TMC and ensure they support your initiative.

Another very effective method to realise online adoption is to use chargebacks. Many corporates have established two or even three-tiered transaction fees with their TMC so the costs of booking online are clearly lower than booking over the phone.

The next step is to charge-back those fees to individuals or cost centres to increase awareness of the savings for booking online.

STEP 3: Obtain executive endorsement. Leading companies consistently rank 'executive endorsement' as the most effective technique for driving online booking. It's critical that their endorsement is communicated to the company, along with the overall benefits of booking online.

STEP 4: Strong communication. Understanding your target audiences of travellers and travel arrangers and developing key messages for each is important. Consider all available delivery vehicles such as email, voicemail, newsletters, posters, intranet etc.

STEP 5: Training materials. It’s important to give bookers the support and information they require through a structured training programme. Successful programme elements include SBT overview sessions at launch, access to online tutorials, FAQ sheets and quick reference guides.

STEP 6: Track results. Be sure
to calculate your adoption levels and resultant travel savings, and communicate these to management and all stakeholders.

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