Without business travel, professionals would be restricted to video calls — something we’ve all grown tired of in recent years.

While video calls have their place, getting away from the office or remote workplace is valuable for individuals and beneficial for companies.

There are many types of business travel, from a working lunch with a new client to a week-long overseas conference. Explore the value of business travel and the goals it helps to achieve.

Five types of business travel

Business travel covers all trips made for work purposes. And all types of business travel have a purpose. Client meetings and sales pitches support business development, while other trips, like conferences, focus on education and networking.

Client meetings

Professionals average 25.6 meetings per week.

Such is the frequency of meetings — whether a routine client meeting or an impromptu catch-up with a supplier — arranging transport to and from these meetings is an everyday occurrence.

And getting out of the office for some of those meetings can make them more productive.

Face-to-face meetings and business lunches remain essential to building healthy, long-lasting relationships. Nothing beats putting a face to a name or closing a deal with a handshake.

Events and conferences

To develop your workforce, consider encouraging your employees to attend conferences, trade shows, and workshops.

These professional learning and development sessions are everyday activities that typically attract large numbers of employees. Indeed, 68% of workers consider learning and development the most important opportunity offered by employers.

Such demand means making additional travel considerations — namely, cost and environmental impact.

Visiting other offices

Business travel is essential for companies with multiple offices as it helps tie the entire business operation together.

Employees and management will often travel to discuss projects, performance, and strategy with other offices. Travel arrangements will vary depending on whether offices are local, national, or international.

Team-building activities

When planning a team-building event, the most important thing is travel.

It wouldn’t be much of a team-building event if only half of your team made it! There are plenty of team-building activities you can host within the office walls, but when something more adventurous comes calling, you need to find a way for everyone to get there. The activities to connect with your team are endless — from escape rooms to summer golf days.

Bleisure

No, that’s not a typo. Bleisure is the time added to the end of a business trip for sightseeing and relaxation.

If the business trip’s long-distance, it’s understandable that employees are eager to stay and enjoy the sights. Surveys show that 75% of business travellers extend trips for leisure purposes — and it’s a growing trend.

With professionals accustomed to remote working, remaining in travel destinations for days or weeks beyond business trips could become the new normal.

Finding the best way to travel for work

There are various forms of ground transport to suit all types of business travel.

Companies should have a travel policy that allows employees to travel for work and claim expenses. Many companies are now building sustainable travel policies to reduce their environmental impact.

But whether there’s a clear travel policy in place or not, any time an individual or team travels for work, you need to consider:

Cost;
Distance;
Sustainability;
Accessibility;
The number of travellers.

Company cars

Many see company cars as an ideal solution for arranging business travel. But when considering the rising fuel, maintenance, and insurance costs, alternatives provide better value.

Owning a fleet may be convenient, but the outlay of providing company cars rarely makes financial sense. Plus, if you purchase a company car to share amongst employees, things can get complicated when multiple people need to use it on the same day.

Some companies try to solve the difficulties of owning a fleet by offering team members a car allowance. But this can give employers less control over the costs, and there’s no guarantee the fuel will be used for business travel.

Public transport

Public transportation is an environmentally-friendly travel option. And it can work out cheaper than owning a fleet of company cars.

The carbon emissions and price perks are appealing, but if you’re looking for a reliable, stress-free service, you’ll want to keep scrolling.

You have to adjust your plans to suit timetables rather than having the flexibility to travel any time. Factor in the time spent plotting routes, navigating a stressful rush hour, and potentially unreliable services, and it’s easy to see why many opt for different transport methods.

Taxis

You can use the time in the backseat of a taxi to work on important tasks or prepare for the meeting ahead. The journey promises to be relaxing and stress-free, but the before and after can be troublesome.

Hailing a taxi or phoning a firm to organise a pick-up is frustrating, especially in a remote and unfamiliar area. And at the end of your journey, you can get stung with an eye-watering bill if you use the wrong firm.

Then employees have to foot the bill until the travel expense claim is processed.

Bolt Business

You can get all the benefits of various transport methods in one complete package with Bolt Business.

Through the Bolt Business dashboard, admins can:

Add and remove employees;
Set travel rules and spending limits;
Book rides for employees and clients with Ride Booker.

Once added, employees can arrange ground travel using their Bolt app:

Getting a ride to the airport;
Commuting on an electric scooter;
Arriving in a premium car for important sales meetings.

How to claim travel expenses

The process of claiming travel expenses varies from company to company, but they’re always a waste of valuable working hours.

The average expense report takes 20 minutes to complete. That means a team of 10 (each submitting one expense report per month) would lose 40 working hours a year. And that’s if the process goes smoothly.

Aside from the time they take, expenses are often aggravating too. From gathering train tickets and taxi receipts to submitting expense reports, going through the motions of reclaiming expenses is arduous.

How to make claiming travel expenses easier

Bolt Business is a single solution that makes booking and reporting on corporate ground travel easier.

You can manage and pay for all your company’s ground travel from a single dashboard. And pre-filled digital receipts are provided automatically after every journey. That means no more paperwork and one less time-consuming task for employees.

Find out how the workers at one company are saving up to 30 minutes a day now they don’t need to expense their travel.

Affordable work rides, without the paperwork