This will be a interesting course for me to complete. I am already amazed that $2.5 billion dollars is spent on official travel a year, and more I’m sure with fares changing daily. This makes us the largest purchaser of travel in the world.
It is my hope that we will look at ways to curtail some of the spending, with so much new and improved technology available now this should be possible. There are ways of live broadcasting for training classes, conference calls, etc. I feel a majority of this training could be on line, which I am a big supporter of that. I don’t think there is anything better than on-line courses, and especially when companies are trying to cut costs.
A lot of costs can also be cut, with just encouraging travelers to book as early in advance as possible, to take advantage of discounted fares, and etc.. To procrastinate and wait for last minute booking in hopes of discount seating as you get closer to travel is not a good practice. Looking at days of the week to have meetings that involove overnight travel can also help with expenses. Hotels usually discount rooms with travel from Sunday to Thursday, with a Friday morning departure. So many opportunites are available to reduce this multi-billion dollar expense.
Learning the origin of travel I think is going to be exciting and benefical when questions are ask of me from travelers in my company.
We all need to focus more on what we can do, to concentrate on saving money for our companies. And useless spending on travel and hotels is a start, when you have accomodations at your facility.