Comparing Travel Management Software vs. Open Bookings vs. TMCs
Confused by when to use open bookings, a TMC, or travel management software? This post explains the pros and cons of each.
Table of Contents
What Are Open Bookings?
Online bookings are very familiar to travelers – they’re the medley of sites we all use for personal travel, including Kayak, Google Flights, Airbnb, and Booking.com. Whether it’s a site, app, or search engine, the process is the same: employees hunt for their own hotels, flights, and car rentals.
That freedom is both a blessing and a curse:
- Employees are already familiar with consumer booking tools. ✅
- Employees can book travel that suits their comfort, convenience, loyalty programs, and preferences. ✅
- But there’s also no oversight until the expense report, making it impossible to enforce travel policies before the money is squandered. ❌
- When travel plans change or flights (inevitably!) get delayed, employees have to troubleshoot on their own. ❌
- And organizations have no visibility into where their employees are traveling. ❌
| Travel Management Software | Open Travel Bookings | ||
| ✅ | Proactively control spend and enforce compliance. | ❌ | Hope employees will do the right thing. |
| ✅ | Get real-time visibility into spend, and save time analyzing with custom reports & dashboards. | ❌ | See what you spent a month later, after it’s too late. |
| ✅ | Huge and exclusive inventory unlocks savings that only large enterprises can typically negotiate. | ❌ | No access to unique inventory or negotiated rates for preferred properties. |
| ✅ | Travel agents are available 24/7 via phone, chat, Slack, or email when travel issues arise. | ❌ | Employees are on their own troubleshooting delays and changes. |
What Is a Travel Management Company?
A travel management company (TMC) is essentially a travel agency for corporate travel.
If a travel agent sounds old-fashioned or lavish, it really isn’t. Compared to open bookings, a TMC:
- increases visibility and control
- provides employees with a one-stop shop for booking an entire trip
- gives you access to dedicated concierge-level support
- and saves money
GBTA estimates that “partnering with a TMC saves companies between 5% and 50% of their annual travel spend, and as travel is often a company’s second largest expense, even companies that spend as little as $250,000 a year can see significant savings.” (source)
>> Related: Making the Leap to Managed Travel <<
What Is Travel Management Software?
Travel management software blends the benefits of a TMC with online bookings.
Thanks to API integrations and elegant UX, employees can quickly check availability and prices, book flights and hotels, save receipts, submit expense reports, track approvals, and analyze spending. All with more oversight and reporting than random consumer sites.
- Travel management software can offer one place for employees to book all of their flights, cars, and lodging.
- Built-in reporting tracks how much teams are spending and monitors overall savings against policies.
- Travel management software creates more accurate trip forecasts by using real-time market rates, not last year’s data or averages.
- Travel management software increases compliance with travel policies by blocking or flagging noncompliant fares. By transparently presenting employees a budget, and explanations for it, employees are less frustrated and more accountable.
- Using travel management software saves significant money through negotiated rates on hotels and flights, typically reserved for large corporations. Keep an eye out for a tool that integrates with the Global Distribution System (GDS).
