As an HR, your plate is already full—handling people, policies, payroll, and performance. But when travel management starts eating into your day, it’s time to pause and ask:
“Are we still handling travel the right way?”
If you’re a mid-sized company or fast-growing startup with 200–500 employees, even 10% of your team travelling regularly can result in hundreds of bookings, follow-ups, and invoices every month.
If that sounds familiar, you’re not alone. But it’s also a sign—it might be time to take a Travel Management Company (TMC) seriously.
Let’s explore the key signs that show you’ve outgrown the manual travel mess—and how it affects your time, money, and employee experience.
1. Travel Bookings Are Eating Up Your Time
Imagine this:
You have 500 employees, and just 10% of them—say 50 people—travel twice a month. That’s already 100 travel bookings to manage every single month. Now add hotel reservations, cab arrangements, last-minute changes, follow-ups, cancellations, and endless approval loops.
Before you know it, you’re handling 300+ travel-related tasks every month. What should ideally take 5 minutes per booking quickly snowballs into 3 to 4 hours of your day, every day.
That’s time you’re not spending on hiring, employee engagement, or wellness initiatives—the things that really matter for your people and your company culture.
But here’s the bigger picture:
A report found that employees who book their own business trips using consumer websites spend an average of 12 hours per trip—just on researching, booking, making changes, cancellations, and managing expense reports.
That’s 12 hours of lost productivity for each trip.
Now multiply that across your company, and you’re looking at hundreds of wasted hours every month.
That’s where a Travel Management Company like CoTrav makes all the difference.
With smart automation and centralized workflows, you can cut down 70–80% of manual effort—saving 20 to 30 hours a week on average. No more chasing approvals, coordinating bookings, or fixing last-minute issues.
Instead, you stay focused on what matters most—while we take care of the travel chaos.
2. No Real Visibility on Travel Spend
Let’s do a quick calculation:
If each round trip (including flight, cab, and hotel) costs around ₹10,000–₹15,000, and you have 100 trips per month, you’re spending ₹10–15 lakhs monthly on travel.
Now, ask yourself:
- Do you know where this money goes?
- Can you track spends by project, team, or department?
- Are you leveraging bulk deals and preferred rates?
Without clear visibility, controlling costs becomes nearly impossible. You might be overspending by 15–20% without even realizing it.
Moreover, data from TruTrip indicates that business travellers who booked flights can cost 21% more than those booked by managers, and a 2-day delay in booking can increase costs by up to 23%.
A Travel Management Company brings all this under one roof, providing you with dashboards and reports to make informed decisions. By centralizing bookings and enforcing policy compliance, a TMC can help you:
- Gain real-time visibility into travel expenses.
- Ensure adherence to travel policies.
- Leverage negotiated rates and bulk deals.
- Reduce unnecessary spending and improve budgeting.
Partnering with a Travel management company not only streamlines your travel management but also leads to substantial cost savings and enhanced operational efficiency.
3. Last-Minute Requests Are Breaking the System
Urgent meetings, site visits, or surprise events—sometimes last-minute travel is unavoidable. But when it becomes frequent, it can quietly drain your time, budget, and peace of mind.
When you book a flight just 24 hours in advance, you often pay ₹5,000–₹7,000 more than if you had booked it earlier.
And there’s data to back it up:
According to the 2024 Air Travel Hacks Report by Expedia, travelers who booked domestic flights at least 28 days in advance saved up to 24% compared to those who booked last minute.
What Happens When You Book Late:
- Fewer Options: Flights and hotels are limited, so you’re left with what’s available—not what’s best.
- Higher Costs: Prices spike closer to the travel date.
- More Stress: Coordinating last-minute travel takes up your time and adds pressure to your day.
What You Can Do Instead:
When you have a clear travel policy that encourages early planning, you gain back control. Here’s how it helps:
- Save More: Advance bookings get better fares and more choices.
- Work Smarter: Less time spent scrambling to arrange travel.
- Stay Informed: Track expenses and spot patterns with simple reports.
By building a habit of planning ahead, you reduce stress, save money, and keep things running smoothly—even when urgent travel pops up.
If you’d like help creating a smart travel policy or want a better way to manage last-minute travel, we’re here for you.
4. Employee Travel Experience Is Suffering
Let’s face it—no one likes:
- Cabs that don’t show up.
- Flights at odd hours.
- Hotels that are far from meeting locations.
If this is happening often, you’re not just hurting convenience—you’re risking productivity. When an employee loses 4 hours in transit or sleeps in a poor hotel, it reflects in their work the next day.
A travel management company (TMC) allows you to store traveler preferences, assign budgets by level, and ensure everyone travels comfortably—while staying compliant with your company’s policies.
Happy travellers = better performance.
5. Dealing with Too Many Vendors
Flights from Platform A. Hotels from Agent B. Cabs from Local Vendor C.
Multiple platforms = multiple emails, multiple payment cycles, and zero integration.
If you’re dealing with 5+ vendors, it also means 5x the miscommunication, follow-ups, and errors. Not to mention, you can’t track spending across all of them in one place.
A travel management company offers one dashboard, one support team, one payment point—and complete transparency.
No wonder 77% of managers said they are interested in an all-in-one travel and expense platform, showing how important it is to simplify and unify travel management to save time and reduce errors.
6. No Support When Things Go Wrong
Flight cancelled? Hotel messed up? Driver not reachable?
You know what happens next—employees call you. HR becomes the go-to person for on-road issues. It’s stressful, especially when things go south after hours.
With a Travel management company, there’s 24×7 support that employees can call directly. Whether it’s midnight or Sunday morning, you don’t have to solve travel problems anymore.
And that peace of mind? It’s worth everything.
7. You’re Spending More Time on Travel Than HR
If even 20–30% of your day goes into solving travel issues, you’re not just overwhelmed—you’re underutilized.
Your time should be spent on:
- Culture
- Onboarding
- Retention
- Engagement
- Strategy
Not comparing hotel rates or chasing vendors for invoices.
If travel is taking up more space than people in your HR day—it’s not a small problem. It’s a growing one.
Why CoTrav Is the Right Travel Management Partner for You
If you’re spending too much time managing travel, facing rising costs, or juggling too many vendors—CoTrav is the solution you need.
With CoTrav, you get one platform for all bookings—flights, hotels, cabs—plus 24×7 support, one payment point, and real-time spend tracking.
No more follow-ups, delays, or confusion.
Leave the travel hassle to CoTrav, so you can focus on your core HR work—like culture, hiring, and employee engagement.
You save time, cut costs, and improve your employees’ travel experience—while we simplify corporate travel for you—end to end.
Conclusion
If managing travel is eating into your time, budget, or peace of mind—that’s your sign.
Whether you’re dealing with last-minute bookings, rising costs, poor employee experiences, or just too many vendors—it’s clear your company has outgrown the manual way of managing travel.
And that’s exactly where CoTrav steps in.
- All bookings in one place
- 24×7 support
- Real-time tracking & reports
- One payment and zero follow-ups
- Better deals, fewer errors, and happier travellers
Leave travel to us—while you focus on your core HR goals.
