According to a Trip.com survey, Japanese companies are incurring invisible costs in their travel management, with product shortages cited as a factor behind the increase in unmanaged bookings.
Trip.com examined business travel practices at Japanese companies using business travel data from its corporate travel management service, Trip.Biz. The analysis pointed to an increase in bookings made outside company oversight, suggesting that some corporate travel costs are not being captured.
The survey indicates that a certain number of bookings are made outside the scope of internal company policies. These “unmanaged bookings” were described as potentially making it difficult to track total travel expenses. External factors, including shortages of available inventory and delays in supply, are also cited as contributing to the situation.
At the same time, some observers believe that the expansion of companies’ online booking systems and the use of BTM cloud solutions could improve booking transparency. Practical measures to improve operations and developments in data integration are likely to attract attention going forward.