Corporate Traveler vs DIY travel management

When managing business travel, choosing between handling it yourself or partnering with an expert can make all the difference. DIY travel booking might seem like a straightforward solution—after all, it's a familiar process where you have complete control. But for growing businesses, this approach can quickly become a burden, leading to inefficiencies, unexpected costs, and wasted time.

Designed specifically for businesses that demand more than just basic travel booking, Corporate Traveler offers a comprehensive travel management solution built to address business travel's unique challenges. With a blend of advanced technology and personalized service, Corporate Traveler goes beyond simple bookings. It ensures every aspect of your travel program is efficient, economical, and satisfying.

In essence, Corporate Traveler provides the specialized support and sophisticated tools that DIY can't match.

Let's discuss the key differences between Corporate Traveler and DIY travel booking to see which option meets your business needs.

What is DIY travel management?

DIY travel management is handling all your business travel needs independently, without the help of a dedicated travel management company (TMC). It usually involves using online booking tools and platforms to arrange flights, hotels, and transportation, often with the belief that it's saving time and money. While it might work for small trips or occasional travel, as your business grows, managing bookings, handling last-minute changes, and ensuring compliance with travel policies can become overwhelming, time-consuming, and prone to errors. Plus, without the buying power and expertise of a TMC, you might miss out on valuable deals and perks.

Corporate Traveler versus DIY travel management: 8 key differences

1. Centralized booking vs fragmented booking

Managing business travel involves booking flights, hotels, and car rentals. Sometimes, there are even more complex needs, such as coordinating multiple travelers or ensuring compliance with company policies.

With a DIY approach, this often means jumping from one platform to another—one site for flights, another for hotels, and yet another for car rentals. This consumes valuable time and increases the likelihood of higher costs, errors, missed connections, and policy breaches.

Corporate Traveler simplifies this process with a centralized, all-in-one booking platform, Melon. It allows you to book flights, accommodations, and cars all from one place, with the added benefits of tailored recommendations and access to exclusive deals. Melon's intuitive design ensures that your team can book, manage, and report on travel with just a few clicks while keeping everything compliant with your policies.

Take Vicki Mann, Executive Assistant at New Era, for example. She noticed a significant difference after switching to Corporate Traveler: "Our booking fees have fallen, and we're now capturing more travel spend and have greater overall visibility, allowing us to really pinpoint where there are further savings to be made."

With DIY, you're left to piece together your travel program, potentially missing out on savings and efficiency. But with Corporate Traveler, you get a streamlined, simplified solution that saves you time and money while providing a seamless travel experience for your team. It's the difference between a fragmented, time-consuming process and a streamlined, efficient one. And when time is money, that's a difference worth considering.

2. Personalized support, anytime, anywhere

One of the biggest challenges with DIY travel management is the lack of personalized support. When you're alone, handling last-minute changes, unexpected cancellations, or complex itineraries can quickly become overwhelming. You're left dealing with generic customer service representatives who may not fully understand your specific needs or the nuances of your industry.

With Corporate Traveler, you're never alone. Our service goes beyond just booking flights and hotels. We pair you with a dedicated travel consultant who knows your business inside and out. This consultant becomes an extension of your team, ensuring every aspect of your travel program is handled with care and expertise. Whether finding the best routes, securing those hard-to-get reservations, or navigating sudden travel disruptions, your dedicated consultant is just a call or message away—24/7.

Curtis Jeffrey, the HR Director at Paper Excellence, has seen the value of this personalized approach firsthand: "Employees know that this is the most cost-effective service available. Stephanie has been booking for us for five years and continues to give us great service. Anything we need, we call her, and we know it will be easy." 

DIY travel management often means dealing with multiple customer service representatives who may not be familiar with your specific needs, leading to inconsistencies and frustrations. But with Corporate Traveler, you have a consistent, knowledgeable point of contact who ensures your travel experience is smooth, efficient, and stress-free every single time.

3. Complete travel spend visibility

Managing business travel expenses can be tedious and time-consuming, especially when manually tracking where the money goes. If you're handling bookings across different platforms, losing sight of your overall travel spend is easy. DIY travel spend management often means juggling receipts, tracking expenses across multiple platforms, dealing with delayed reimbursements, and unnecessary stress for travelers and finance teams. It's a struggle.

With Corporate Traveler, all your travel spend is centralized in one place, giving you a clear and comprehensive view of your expenses. Our travel platform, Melon, provides detailed, real-time insights into your travel costs, making it easier to track every dollar spent. You can quickly identify patterns, spot potential savings, and ensure travel budget efficiency.

This level of visibility is invaluable for making informed decisions that benefit your company and your travelers. Instead of scrambling to reconcile expenses and missing out on crucial data, you'll have everything you need at your fingertips.

When you DIY your travel management, you risk losing track of key financial details. However, with Corporate Traveler, you gain complete control and transparency, ensuring your travel program is as cost-effective as possible.

4. More choices, better rates, and savings

Having options can make all the difference in business travel. With DIY travel management, you're often stuck piecing together flights, hotels, and car rentals from different platforms, hoping to snag a decent deal. It's tiring, and you might still pay more than you should.

At Corporate Traveler, we offer a solution that's both comprehensive and efficient. Our network spans over 90 countries, giving you access to many travel options and exclusive deals you won't find anywhere else. Thanks to our longstanding relationships with suppliers, we can offer millions of air, car, and hotel rates, plus special travel deals. From GDS (Global Distribution System) to NDC (New Distribution Capability), Expedia rates and beyond, booking with us ensures you get the best possible value.

Whether you're flying with a preferred airline, hitting the road with a rental car, or staying at one of the thousands of hotels offering us exclusively negotiated rates, we've got you covered. You'll enjoy free checked bags, priority boarding, complimentary WiFi, breakfast, and late check-out while saving money.

Consider the case of the Multiple Sclerosis Society of Canada. Before partnering with us, their travel bookings were a tangled mess, with staff booking through various services and no way to track overall expenses. This lack of data made it impossible to identify saving opportunities despite their eagerness to cut down travel costs.

"We were committed as an organization to reduce our travel budget but didn't have enough information to know where to begin," says David Arbuthnot, VP Shared Services at the MS Society.

Once Corporate Traveler stepped in, everything changed. Our detailed reporting provided the insights they needed to streamline their travel policy and identify significant savings. Today, their travel program runs smoothly, thanks to our user-friendly travel tech and dedicated travel managers handling all details.

"What really stood out to us after years of having an unmanaged travel program was receiving the first set of data reports from Corporate Traveler," Arbuthnot notes. "Not only did it show us consolidated trends, but overall savings as well—this is when we knew the program was working."

DIY travel management often lacks the visibility and negotiating power to secure the best deals. With Corporate Traveler, you get more choices, better rates, and substantial savings without hassle. So why settle for less when you can have the best?

5. Built-in travel policy

Managing business travel without a clear policy can be chaotic. When companies take a DIY approach, they often struggle to control travel costs, manage reimbursements effectively, and ensure employee safety. Without a structured travel policy, the risk of unauthorized bookings increases, approvals get bogged down, and reconciling expenses can become complicated and time-consuming.

A travel policy is a crucial tool for any business. It defines how to book travel, what costs are acceptable, and which vendors are trusted. More importantly, it offers a framework for managing the entire travel process, from booking to post-trip reporting. A well-defined policy also clarifies reimbursement procedures and ensures that all travel aligns with the company's budget and safety standards.

Our business travel platform, Melon, seamlessly integrates your travel policy directly into the booking process. This means that employees have a clear set of guidelines to follow, making it easier to stay within budget and comply with company policies. Melon's built-in features, such as the "recommended spend" function, help travelers make choices that align with the company's expectations, reducing the likelihood of out-of-policy bookings.

When using Melon, the travel policy evolves from being just a document to an active part of the travel management process. By embedding the policy into the booking system, companies can streamline approvals, minimize unauthorized spending, and ensure that every trip is cost-effective and safe.

For companies currently managing travel on their own, incorporating a travel policy into a centralized platform can significantly improve efficiency and reduce stress for travelers and those managing the travel program.

6. Industry-specific expertise

In the business travel space, one-size-fits-all solutions rarely cut it. The nuances of each industry demand a level of expertise that goes beyond mere logistics. Understanding your sector's specific needs, challenges, and rhythm elevates your travel management experience. Without this industry-specific knowledge, you risk inefficiencies, missed opportunities for savings, and unnecessary complications.

Industry expertise isn't just a nice-to-have; it's the cornerstone of effective travel management. Consider Webber, a leading force in the heavy civil construction industry. Their vast operations span thousands of employees and projects requiring meticulous coordination.

Yet, Webber's previous TMC fell short, lacking the depth of knowledge needed to support such a complex operation. The result was a disjointed travel program that left Webber grappling with inefficiencies and missed savings.

Corporate Traveler's specialized industry expertise made all the difference. When Webber transitioned to Corporate Traveler, they got a dedicated team that truly understands the intricacies of their industry.

Elzette, their assigned travel consultant, brought over a decade of experience, transforming Webber's travel operations through tailored solutions addressing their specific needs. From conducting training sessions to improve compliance, to aligning services with Webber's parent company, Elzette's deep understanding of the construction industry allowed her to tailor solutions that met Webber's unique needs.

The result? A travel program that runs smoothly, efficiently, and is backed by a team that Webber can trust.

When you manage travel on your own, you might get by—but you'll continually be operating at a disadvantage. Without the deep industry insight that a partner like Corporate Traveler provides, you face travel complexities without the critical guidance that could make all the difference. In an era where efficiency and precision are paramount, having a travel partner who understands your industry inside and out is essential.

7. Reporting and visibility

When managing business travel, keeping track of where the money goes, ensuring traveler safety, and sticking to policies isn't just a good idea—it's crucial. Access to detailed, customizable reports can make all the difference, helping you make smart decisions that save money, boost efficiency, and keep your people safe on the road.

Handling travel alone can feel like piecing together a puzzle with scattered data. Getting a clear, consolidated view can be nearly impossible when your information is spread across multiple booking channels and platforms. This means you might miss out on opportunities to save money, improve how well your policies are followed, or even ensure your team's safety.

But with Corporate Traveler, we make it easy. Our platform, Melon, gives you powerful reporting tools to see the full picture of your travel program. From tracking expenses to monitoring carbon emissions, Melon's got you covered with reports that are both detailed and easy to customize.

Here's what you can do with Melon:

• Dive deep into your travel spending, helping you spot where you can save money without cutting corners. It's perfect for tightening up your budget.
• Visualize how closely your team follows travel policies, getting the insights you need to boost compliance and fine-tune your strategy.
• Keep an eye on your carbon footprint with easy-to-understand reports so you can make smarter, more sustainable travel choices
• Get real-time updates on where your people are with our real-time traveler tracking report, helping you ensure their safety and keeping communication smooth.
• See how your travel policies are working with clear, simple insights into your savings.

Take Pelsis Group, for example. They're on a mission to cut down their environmental impact, and with Corporate Traveler's help, they've been able to track and offset their carbon emissions with a verified carbon removal scheme. Thanks to Melon's reporting dashboard and our dedicated support, Pelsis can now make travel decisions that are good for their business and the planet.

When you DIY your travel management, you might be able to track some of these things—but without a centralized, all-in-one reporting tool like Melon, you're likely missing out on the full picture. With Corporate Traveler, you get the clarity and control to make your travel program work better for everyone.

8. Tough travel arrangements and last-minute changes

Planning travel can be tricky on a good day. But when it comes to specialized needs—like juggling film crews, transporting equipment, or dealing with last-minute changes, things can quickly become a logistical nightmare.

Imagine trying to book flights, hotels, and ground transportation on your own, hopping between different platforms, and then something goes wrong. Maybe you need to change a booking at the last minute or run into unexpected local laws. Without the proper support, things can spiral out of control fast.

Having a dedicated travel consultant makes all the difference. At Corporate Traveler, we handle the tough stuff so you don't have to. Our dedicated travel consultants have the expertise to manage even the most complex travel arrangements.

Consider the case of Blast! Films. While shooting the TV show ”Flying to the Ends of the Earth”, their crew found themselves stranded in Siberia after a helicopter crash. It was a tight spot, but our team organized transport and flights to get them home safely and within budget. And when it was time to get a new crew back on the location to finish the job, we made it happen without missing a beat.

When you have Corporate Traveler in your corner, you can breathe easy knowing that even the most complicated travel arrangements are under control. We take care of the details so you can focus on what matters— making your next big film or sealing a crucial deal. Trying to DIY this kind of travel? You're likely to end up stressed and over budget, scrambling to fix issues as they come up. Why not let us handle it instead?

Conclusion

Corporate Traveler offers a travel management solution far beyond what DIY can provide. With centralized booking, personalized support, seamless expense management, and industry-specific expertise, we streamline every aspect of business travel. From detailed reporting to handling tricky travel arrangements, Corporate Traveler ensures efficiency, cost savings, and peace of mind. For businesses aiming to optimize their travel program and stay ahead, Corporate Traveler is the clear choice over DIY management—no contest.