Corporate travel spend has crept back up across most industries over the past couple of years. Flights are pricier, hotels have revised their rates upwards, and the incidental costs: meals, laundry, taxis, add up faster than most travel managers expect. For companies sending staff away regularly, the gap between what was budgeted and what’s actually being spent can be significant.
It’s worth taking a fresh look at where the money actually goes before deciding where to cut back. There’s a lot to unpack here, so let’s get into the details.
Where Business Travel Budgets Tend to Leak
Flight and rail costs are obvious line items that most finance teams scrutinise closely. What tends to slip under the radar is the secondary spend: restaurant meals every night, hotel laundry charges, room service, and the cost of not having a proper workspace outside of the office. These smaller amounts compound quickly on longer trips.
Stays of a week or more in a standard hotel room are particularly prone to cost creep. Without a kitchen, staff are eating out for every meal. Without laundry facilities, they’re either using the hotel’s overpriced service or buying extra clothing. These are avoidable costs if the accommodation is set up to handle them.
Accommodation as a Budget Lever
For trips lasting longer than a week, business apartments are worth serious consideration. A fully furnished apartment with a kitchen, washing machine and a proper living area changes the economics of an extended stay considerably. Staff can cook their own meals, do their own laundry, and work from a desk rather than a hotel bed.
The daily rate on a serviced apartment is often competitive with a mid-range hotel once you factor in what’s included. Over seven or more nights, the savings on food and laundry alone can offset a significant portion of the accommodation cost itself.
How to Get More From Your Travel Policy
A travel policy that was written three or four years ago may not reflect how your people actually travel now. It’s worth reviewing the following areas:
- Booking lead times: later bookings almost always cost more, so building in earlier approval processes saves money
- Preferred suppliers: negotiated rates with a shortlist of providers deliver better value than open-market booking
- Trip consolidation: combining multiple short trips into a single longer stay reduces travel frequency and associated costs
- Accommodation type by trip length: matching the accommodation to the length of stay instead of defaulting to hotels every time
Most policies default to hotels because that’s what’s familiar. There’s rarely a considered reason behind it. A quick audit of how long trips actually run in your business will often reveal that a chunk of them are long enough to justify a different approach.
Traveller Comfort and Budget Are Not in Conflict
One objection that comes up when companies look at cutting accommodation costs is that staff will feel the difference. That’s a fair concern for certain cuts, but it doesn’t apply universally. A well-chosen serviced apartment in a good location, with a proper kitchen and reliable Wi-Fi, is a more comfortable place to spend a week than a cramped hotel room. Traveller satisfaction doesn’t have to take a hit.
In fact, people on longer trips tend to do better in a space that feels more like home. Having room to relax properly in the evenings, being able to cook a meal, and not eating alone in a restaurant every night all contribute to how someone feels by the end of a long assignment. That matters for productivity as much as anything else.
The Bottom Line
There’s no single switch to flip that cuts business travel costs in half. But there are several practical changes that, together, make a real difference. Reviewing your travel policy, booking earlier, negotiating with suppliers, and rethinking accommodation for longer stays are all steps that compound into meaningful annual savings.
The most overlooked of those is accommodation type. If your default is still hotel rooms for every trip regardless of length, you’re likely leaving money on the table. It’s a straightforward thing to change.
