Promoting sustainability in companies is closely linked to increasing efficiency. In areas where there are already good, efficient processes – such as in travel management and also in strategic meeting management – increases in productivity and reductions in climate-damaging emissions can usually only be realized extensively, and yet it is necessary to achieve the set climate goals, and economically to stay competitive at the same time.

The situation changes as soon as meeting and travel processes are not considered separate, sequential processes, but cause and effect. 75% of business trips have an M&E background, so it pays to put on an expanded lens and understand the decisions of meeting organizers as input parameters for travel processes. If one takes into account the travel and accommodation needs of the participants when selecting the place and time of an event, there is not only considerable direct savings potential in terms of climate-damaging emissions and travel costs but also insights that can have a direct and positive influence on several special fields.

Some examples:

Interplay between procurement, travel & meeting management

Negotiated rates in the hotel and travel sector are often not sufficiently effective since destinations are chosen in which there are no contract hotels/meeting venues and it is a matter of luck whether travel suppliers with contract rates will handle the journeys.

Travel security

Especially in the unmanaged meeting segment, it often happens that participants are faced with problems when booking their travel to the meeting location if the destination cannot be reached according to the company’s security guidelines or can only be reached with conditions. Even in the managed area, the organizer/meeting owner does not always have the latest information/guidelines available, which can also lead to the selection of a suboptimal destination.

Travel Policies

Without projecting the travel processes, it is difficult to choose a destination that can be traveled to for all or most of the participants within the framework of the general or role-specific travel guidelines. The selection of the place and time of an event therefore also has a direct impact on the policy compliance of the attendees.

Traveler Wellbeing

A common fallacy is to believe that attendees value a representative meeting destination more than convenient travel. In order to take both into account, it is also necessary to choose a meeting location that optimizes travel time and minimizes transfer times.

Transparent End-to-End process

Imagine a process in which the concentrated competence of your departments is taken into account and accompanies and supports the user from organizing a meeting to booking the venue, travel, and hotel accommodation. According to the motto “It’s better to help than to whip” you correspond to the modern working world, avoid maverick buying through guidance and enable ecologically and economically valuable decisions of your employees.

In view of the need to actively protect the climate in the form of reduced CO₂ emissions, the above benefits can be viewed as soft skills. An intelligent choice of place and time of an event enables an average reduction of climate-damaging gases by 40% and a minimization of direct travel costs by 30%.