The survey of 500 senior finance professionals conducted by travel management software provider SalesTrip also found that 70% of finance teams spend more than one day per month tracking business travel and expenses.
Almost half of respondents said they don’t understand the ROI of business travel and expense spend, and 39% said business travel and expenses are the most unpredictable cost to a business.
In addition the research showed 70% of organisations lack the insight to accurately forecast travel and expense spend – and nearly half don’t have full visibility of the ROI it brings in.
This is despite 60% of those surveyed recognising that investment in business travel is essential to business growth.
The lack of ability to forecast is underlined by the 48% of respondents who reported that their company has implemented a company-wide travel ban.
Yet around 73% think that travel bans would be a thing of the past if they could better forecast business travel and expense spend.
“If organisations were able to better manage, track and forecast spend according to business activity or purpose, business leaders will be able to evidence travel as revenue-generating,” says SalesTrip CEO Manoj Ganapathy.
“In turn not only would travel bans become a thing of the past, but corporate travel would be widely considered as an enabler of business growth rather than a necessary evil,” concluded Ganapathy.
