In between getting the best prices, ensuring policy compliance, tracking all expenses, managing travel risks, and meeting your sustainability targets, your business travel planning can quickly get out of hand.
So, what’s the best solution? Travel management companies, that’s what.
A corporate travel management company (TMC) saves you the struggle of juggling travel plans and policies, and streamlines your travel program. We’ve put together a list of the top four TMCs operating in Colorado and a complete guide that covers:
The benefits of using a travel management company Top features to look for when choosing a travel management company. The four best corporate travel management companies in Colorado.
4 Benefits of using a travel management company
Whether you’re building an up-and-coming startup or working at a large-scale enterprise, a TMC can optimize your travel program in a number of ways. Let’s take a look.
TMCs simplify the booking process from start to finish: use online booking tools to quickly and easily find the right flights, hotels, train tickets, and more for your traveling employees.
TMCs facilitate quick post-travel reporting: get access to reporting tools that help you create and share comprehensive travel reports that help inform future corporate travel.
TMCs save you money: whether it’s discounted flights or improved expense management—TMCs can help you take complete control of your travel budget.
TMCs should ensure policy compliance: you should be able to add your corporate travel policy to ensure your traveling employees never go over budget when traveling for work.
Put simply, a business travel company can streamline the booking process, ensure comprehensive travel reporting, and save on your travel budget.
Features to look for when choosing a travel management company
Traditionally, travel management has meant sitting down with a travel agent in a brick-and-mortar agency. It requires constant back-and-forth over details, complex plans and documentation, and a lack of transparency that leaves travel managers questioning if they’ve found the best deal.
Travel management has evolved—travel managers can now quickly and easily find the best deals without leaving their desks. The biggest difficulty now is finding the best TMC for your organization.
Let’s break down six essential features to look for in a TMC:
Inventory size
You want a travel management company that offers a massive inventory of flights, trains, car rentals, and accommodations. You need enough options to compare and choose from for your selected dates and destinations—including low-budget options.
Flexible booking and cancellation options
You might have to make last-minute changes to your business trips—your travel agency should offer the flexibility to accommodate these changes and modify or cancel bookings at any time.
Fantastic customer support
Employees might need help before or during a trip. Your TMC should provide easily accessible, 24/7 assistance to answer queries and address concerns throughout the trip. It’s essential for ensuring your employees are safe on their travels, and never left stranded without anyone to call.
Control your costs with expense management solutions
Getting complete control over spending is essential for successful corporate travel management. You need a solution that can comply with your travel policy, limit traveler spending, and find the best deals around.
Reporting and analytics dashboards
Comprehensive reports for every trip can give you better visibility into your expenses and taxes. You can use this data to closely study your travel patterns and make better decisions in the future.
Compliance and approval integrations
Your chosen travel management company should also help you create customized workflows to review and approve/reject reservations in line with your travel policy. It’s a non-negotiable feature to improve compliance rates and ensure you’re sticking to your travel budget.
The 4 best corporate travel management companies in Colorado
Now that you know what you’re looking for, let’s look at some of the top options for business travel management for companies based in Colorado. We’ve put together the four best corporate travel management companies to narrow your choices and help you find the right one for your business.
1. TravelPerk
TravelPerk is an all-in-one corporate travel management solution taking corporate travel management to the next level. Designed to give travel managers and employees a better overview of their business trips, TravelPerk simplifies the booking process with a centralized invoicing platform, ample integrations with third-party tools, and flexible travel options—plus many more.
Here are some of TravelPerk’s best features for all your corporate travel needs:
Industry-leading travel inventory: Get unparalleled access to flights, accommodation, rail travel, car rental, and even Airbnbs to ensure you find the best options for your business.
Flexible bookings with FlexiPerk: Cancel flights up to two hours before departure and get a guaranteed refund of 80% of the travel cost with FlexiPerk.
Hit sustainability goals with GreenPerk: Meet your carbon control targets with the GreenPerk carbon offsetting program.Travel policy compliance & approval workflows: Keep travel spending within your budget by adding travel policy compliance to your platform and setting up approval workflows in under two minutes.
Efficient risk management with TravelCare: Stay on top of potential risks and prioritize employee safety with TravelCare.
24/7 customer care support: Ensure your employees are safe and connected when traveling for business with TravelPerk’s best-in-class travel assistance team operating at a 15-second response time.
Plus, TravelPerk doesn’t just handle corporate travel—it can also help you organize national and international events. Whether you need to manage attendees, book venues, or schedule meetings, you can do it all with TravelPerk.
TravelPerk optimizes your corporate travel program and eliminates the headache of working with multiple travel agents. It’s a one-stop shop for managing your business travel itineraries without worrying about policy compliance, traveler safety, and travel reporting.
See how TravelPerk makes business travel stress free
2. Cain Travel
Cain Travel is a boutique travel agency based out of Boulder, Colorado. As one of the biggest independent travel management companies in North America, Cain Travel can primarily help you streamline expense management, make and monitor travel bookings, and enforce your travel policy.
Cain Travel is best known for:
Customized online booking tool: Use a travel booking tool—SAP Concur or Etta—customized to your travel policy and budget.
Stay within budget: Increase savings and prevent wasteful expenses with cost-control solutions and negotiated prices for all inventory.
Effectively implement your policy: Set up approvals for different aspects of the booking process and prevent all out-of-policy reservations.
High-touch service: Contact the 24/7 support for any assistance and receive personalized guidance from travel experts with 17+ years of industry experience.
Deliver duty of care: Give employees complete visibility into their itineraries and minimize travel risk with easy access to help.
For all these features, Cain Travel also has a few critical shortcomings—primarily their booking engine. Powered by Concur, the booking engine is clunky and doesn’t have the best inventory. Besides, you can’t track expenses in real-time or offset the carbon emissions of your trip—unlike with TravelPerk.
Direct Travel
Direct Travel is a business travel management company with multiple offices in the USA and Canada. Headquartered in Denver, the company offers wide-ranging travel services to meet your needs—from advisory and planning to expense management and analytics.
Here’s what sets Direct Travel offers to organizations:
End-to-end program management: Work with seasoned account managers to consistently plan, evaluate, and enhance your travel program.
Data-driven savings: Get critical data in real-time to make bookings at the best airfares and prices; track your expenses through extensive reporting.
Improved traveler experience: Access the Direct2U mobile app or the web travel portal to be on top of your itinerary at all times and enjoy 24/7 customer support.
International travel services: Plan trips worldwide with global travel management solutions, supplier data, spend analysis, and more.
Ease of managing travel risk: Get real-time travel alerts about any dangers and communicate with your travelers anywhere in the world.
While Direct Travel is a trusted corporate travel agency in Colorado, they rely on third-party booking tools to make all reservations. This means you don’t get complete control over the planning process—which is a given with TravelPerk’s centralized booking tool.
Besides, they also lack some of TravelPerk’s advanced features, like flexible bookings and cancellations, carbon offsetting, and events management.
CTM
Corporate Travel Management (CTM) is a global travel management company offering all-inclusive travel management solutions for businesses of different sizes. Its booking technology enables travel managers and employees to make travel arrangements online.
Let’s look at a few features that make CTM a leading name in business travel management:
Hassle-free travel app: Book, modify, and manage your travels on the go with CTM’s travel app on your smartphone.
Strategic budget control: Enjoy CTM’s global buying power to get competitive fares and benchmark your employees’ spending for maximum savings.
Powerful business intelligence: Access a customized dashboard and work with a dedicated account manager to review and optimize your travel policy.
Increase compliance: Use the CTM Portal to plan, approve, and track your bookings; it offers fully-integrated travel management solutions.
Industry-specific solutions: Choose from multiple options for specific industries, like sports, university, government, small business, and more.
Despite being a global corporate travel management company, CTM doesn’t match TravelPerk’s intuitive functionality or industry-leading inventory. It doesn’t offer flexible bookings or the guarantee of 100% compliance. CTM also charges a subscription fee, while with TravelPerk, you pay only when you travel.
Choose a trusted travel management company in Colorado
Finding a trusted and all-inclusive travel management partner for your business can be tricky. Thankfully, we’ve made it easier for you by rounding up these four best TMCs for Colorado-based companies.
There’s a clear winner among these four: TravelPerk, the end-to-end corporate travel management platform with a sleek interface, best-in-class inventory, and corporate travel-specific features that hundreds of happy customers agree with on Capterra and G2.
Try TravelPerk today and get complete control over your corporate travel—both before and after take-off.
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