For many organisations, the success of a business travel programme is still reduced to a single number: savings. Year after year, procurement teams are asked how much they have taken out of the travel budget, and travel managers are expected to justify their programme through percentage reductions and headline cost figures.
This approach is understandable, but it is also deeply flawed.
Travel is not a static category. Prices fluctuate daily, demand shifts constantly, and supplier behaviour adapts quickly to the way contracts are structured. When savings become the dominant KPI, decisions are often made that look positive on paper but weaken the programme in practice.
One common example is aggressive airline or hotel sourcing based on volume commitments that no longer reflect how employees actually travel. Routes change, travel patterns evolve, and traveller needs diversify. When contracts are misaligned with reality, compliance drops and leakage increases. The savings still appear in the contract, but the programme quietly loses control.
Another issue is the unintended consequence on service quality. Over-pressured TMC contracts, stripped to the lowest possible transaction fee, often result in hidden charges, reduced proactive servicing, and over-reliance on automated processes that do not fit complex itineraries. The cost does not disappear; it simply reappears elsewhere — in traveller dissatisfaction, lost productivity, and internal escalation.
More mature organisations take a broader view. They still track cost, but they also measure programme health. Compliance rates, online adoption, booking behaviour, exception handling, service response times, and traveller experience all provide far better insight into whether a programme is working.
Crucially, these indicators are also easier to influence directly. Travel managers can redesign policy, adjust approval flows, improve communication, and realign suppliers. These actions deliver sustainable value, not just short-term cost reduction.
The most effective programmes are those where procurement, finance, and travel management agree on what success really looks like. When savings are treated as one outcome of a well-designed programme rather than the objective itself, organisations gain control, resilience, and credibility — not just a number for the next reporting cycle.
