Booking business travel is no easy task, we know, we’ve been there. Whether you’re looking to keep your business trips within Australia, or your business is taking things overseas, a travel management company is a great solution to help make your job easier, cut back on costs, and run smoother trips for your employees.
In this guide, we’ll share six of the best corporate travel management companies that provide the very best travel management solutions in Australia.
The benefits of using a travel management company
Before we get into our top ten Australian-based travel companies, let’s affirm some of the benefits of using a travel management company and align on where this collaboration can take you.
- Easily book and manage trips: all from one solution. Your TMC will enable you to book and get oversight of every business trip without shifting through virtual piles of excel sheets.
- Keep travel costs low: Your TMC has most likely spent years fostering B2B relationships and securing you the best deals on flights, accommodation, cars, and more.
- Ensure employees stay within budget: It can be tough to ensure everyone books within your travel policies. Smart solutions can help you automate this process.
- Easily submit travel expenses: Submitting or collecting expenses is often a cumbersome task that your travel management solution will help you streamline for every stakeholder.
Features to look for when choosing a travel management company
A significant travel inventory
You’ll need dates, times, prices, and travel types that suit your employees’ schedules as well as your budget. Make sure your business travel agency offers an inventory that not only brings you what you need, but also you didn’t know you needed too: rail tickets, VIP options, car rentals, and fully-serviced apartments—the works.
A centralised system
There are some travel management platforms that work with third-party companies butend up having very little to show for their own software. Look for a platform that offers their own centralised system as well as offering easy integration with the tools you’re already using.
Flexible booking options
Travel remains unpredictable whether you’re travelling in Australia or beyond the reef. You’ll need a travel management company that’s able to act on their feet and react to change—fast.
Helps implement your own business travel policy
Handing the company card over to an employee is a big responsibility; however, having one person in charge of booking and managing company travel is also a lot of responsibility.A TMC that’s able to apply your booking policies to employees’ travel is a healthy middle ground, to ensure you’re giving employees travel autonomy, ensuring your travel booking processes are scalable, and keeps everything within budget and company travel policies.
Personalised service and excellent customer support
Keeping employees on the go means supporting them outside of office hours, and most TMCs provide around-the-clock customer support. However, look for those TMCs that offer exceptional customer support rather than just necessary customer support.Pay attention to their
customer support reviews,
ensure they’ve got a rapid response time, and pick the TMC that will turn any travel hiccup into a happy experience.Reporting with real-time data
The power of a good dashboard! Find a TMC that offers booking and expense reporting dashboards that your team will be able to interpret and act on. This process should be able to give you cost breakdowns of all your business travel, and for your team to be able to segment this data down to locations, employees, travel types, and more.
10 best corporate travel agencies for businesses based in Australia
1. TravelPerk
TravelPerk
is considered one of the best travel management solutions on the market. TravelPerk has a solid presence across the globe and is a popular solution for SMBs right through to 500+ employee corporates.Whether you need to organise a meeting in Melbourne, hop on a plane to New Zealand, or plan a trip on the other side of the world, TravelPerk has you covered.Some of TravelPerk’s most raved-about features are:- Flexible bookings with FlexiPerk: Cancel your trip up to two hours before departure and receive 80% of your money back—no questions asked, no “please hold” music needed.
- Carbon offsetting with GreenPerk: Offset 100% of your business travel’s carbon emissions by opting in for TravelPerk’s conscious travel solution.
- Largest travel inventory worldwide: TravelPerk has the largest travel inventory worldwide for your travel program. Whether you’re looking for flights, accommodation, rail, car rentals, or serviced apartments, TravelPerk will bring you the best fit for your travel needs.
- 24/7 Support: Around-the-clock travel experts, with 7-star service and a target 15-second response time, means that your travellers are looked after, no matter where they are or what time they need help.
- Travel Policy integration: say goodbye to bottle-neck approval processes and automate your employees’ bookings with an integrated policy.
- Event management: if you’re in need of cost-effective events, be them little or large, TravelPerk helps manage attendees, group bookings, scheduling, picking locations, and more.
- Integration with 3rd-party software: TravelPerk already integrates with the tools you use: Slack, Expensify, Gympass, Deskpass, FREENOW, and so many more.
G2 rating: 4.6 / 5,
based on 1,533 reviews
Capterra rating: 4.7 / 5, based on 403 reviews
?)
See how TravelPerk makes business travel stress free
2. CTM
?)
With headquarters in Brisbane, CTM is a local one for those businesses in Australia. They’re a more specialist travel management solution, catering mainly to the marine and energy sectors.CTM’s features include:There are a few integrations provided by CTM but not as many when it comes to TravelPerk. With FlexiPerk’s features, you’ve got access to more flexible rates and friendlier cancellation allowances than you would with CTM.
- Online booking tool to assist with travel arrangements: It has a handy fare forecaster that can help provide travellers with flight travel news on possible price hikes or drops.
- Generate reports to monitor business spending: To keep track of your employee expenses, you can generate reports easily.
G2 rating: 2 / 5,
based on two reviews
Capterra rating: NoneReasons why CTM customers have moved to TravelPerk in the past year:
- Leading support in target 15-second response time
- An industry-leading travel inventory
- An intuitive, accessible app to access trip itineraries, and more
3. Complete Business Travel
?)
Complete Business Travel has fifteen years of experience in the travel industry. Headquartered in Queensland, they have a personalised approach to booking travel. Some of their features include:
- 24/7 Support: Always a great feature to have is the support of a travel agent at any time, day or night.
- Flexible and transparent pricing: Full visibility is provided to clients when it comes to travel spending and getting the best travel information on pricing.
- Local expertise for travel with partnerships: CBT is partnered with a number of Australian organisations to help offer a wide range of travel providers.
G2 rating: NoneCapterra rating: None
Reasons why Complete Business Travel customers have moved to TravelPerk in the past year:
- While CBT has a good travel inventory, it doesn’t match the variety that TravelPerk offers.
- With TravelPerk you also benefit from a much more user-friendly and intuitive mobile app, which is where CBT seems to be lacking.
4. Orbit World Travel
?)
For luxury and experiential travel management, Orbit World Travel is a well-known option for Australian companies. It’s one of Australia’s largest locally-owned corporate travel management companies, with a good variety of travel solutions. Let’s take a look:
- Responsive, tech-rich travel platform: Orbit World Travel offers a platform that’s tech-rich and trustworthy.
- Offers a variety of travel types: From corporate, event travel, educational and holiday travel, it provides all types of travel for businesses.
- Expense and report services: Get all you need when it comes to employee expensing and creating reports for data analysis and travel strategy optimization.
G2 rating: NoneCapterra rating: None
Reasons why Orbit World Travel customers have moved to TravelPerk in the past year:
- TravelPerk certainly has much more third-party integrations creating happier customers able to work with TravelPerk from day one.
- OWT is also specifically tailored to corporate travel, so may be out of reach for SMBs.
5. Corporate Traveller
?)
As a travel management solution, Corporate Traveller provides one platform for all your travel booking needs. It’s intuitive in its tech features and support services, making it a valid option for Australian businesses. Let’s explore some of their features:Despite CT being a popular corporate travel agency, TravelPerk has a few added extras such as the carbon offsetting solution to hit those sustainability goals.
- Online booking tool: Great for staff bookers to self-book any and all corporate travel
- Concierge services: Helps business travellers make the most out of their itineraries—wherever they’re going
G2 rating: NoneCapterra rating: None
Reasons why Corporate Traveller customers have moved to TravelPerk in the past year:
- Extensive end-to-end global inventory
- Corporate rates and partnerships for every travel budget
- Easy-to-use platform and mobile app
- 24/7 customer support in target 15-second response time
6. Spencer Travel
?)
Spencer Travel is trusted by many Australian businesses as their business travel agency. They offer plenty of travel services to the corporate sector in particular and lift the travel experience, although business travel isn’t their niche, which may show in their delivery and execution of your business travel strategy.Nonetheless, here are their top offerings for you to explore:Spencer Travel is a reasonable competitor for TravelPerk, but this business travel management company and its offerings doesn’t quite come close to the feature-rich options that TravelPerk customers know and love.You’ll find more corporate rate options available when it comes to TravelPerk’s airline, accommodation, and car rental providers, as TravelPerk specialises in business travel whereas Spencer Travel doesn’t.
- 24/7 Support: Around-the-clock support is provided to all staff bookers looking to hand over the care of their employees whilst not in the office.
- Exclusive airfares and accommodations: With their connections in the travel industry, you get access to exclusively negotiated airfares, accommodations, and car rentals.
- A range of online solutions available: From Serko/Zeno’s online booking tool and BI reporting, they’re working with third parties to try and bring a good solution to their customers where they’re not able to with internal resources.
7. FCM Travel
?)
FCM Travel describes itself as an 'alternative corporate travel company', and offers a full suite of services including:Despite a range of great global business travel features, some
- Checking airfares
- Booking flights, hotels, transfers, and car hire
- Travel approval system customised to suit company travel policies
- Duty of care
- Payments and expense management
- Reporting and analytics
user reviews
indicate several issues with the level of support at FCMprovided when travel problems occur. The customer service experience for some FCM Travel users has also been negative.G2 rating: 5 / 5,
based on one review
Capterra rating: None (as of March 2024)Reasons why FCM Travel customers have moved to TravelPerk in the past year:
- An intuitive platform with dozens of third-party integration options
- Flexible corporate travel cancellations with FlexiPerk
- 24/7 customer service, delivered within a target 15-second response time
- Guest account option for members booking outside your organisation
8. Egencia
?)
Egencia is a corporate travel management company that specialises in helping businesses to manage traveller risk and ensuring compliance. Despite often receiving praise for its travel management software interface, Despite its pros, Egencia does not include VAT recovery, lacks free account management, has no flat fee and extra charges apply - including costs for customer support. With various hidden fees through their platform, Egencia may not be the top choice if you’re aiming to limit company spending.
users have said
it can overwhelm them with information. Here are Egencia’s standout features: - Expense management
- Policy compliance
- Travel itinerary management
- Risk management
- Profile management
G2 rating: 4.5 / 5,
based on 658 reviews
Capterra rating: 3.9 / 5, based on 51 reviews
Reasons why Egencia customers have moved to TravelPerk in the past year:
- Freemium model, simple pricing, and no minimum contract
- No extra cost for customer care or implementation
- No extra monthly fees or hidden charges
- FlexiPerk: book any type of travel—flight, hotel, car, or train—and cancel at any time while still getting an 80% refund
9. Pulse Travel
?)
Established in 1989, Pulse Travel is an Australian-owned corporate TMC providing top travel solutions and customer service to both leisure and business travellers for over 30 years. Pulse offers a range of travel management services from expense management to investment in travel. Their top features include:
- Emergency assistance, 24/7 customer support
- Real-time reports to keep track of employees’ travel and spend patterns
- Individual policies tailored to specific company needs
- Dedicated account managers to your business
G2 rating: NoneCapterra rating: None
Reasons why Pulse Travel customers have moved to TravelPerk in the past year:
- Larger inventory worldwide
- More user-friendly online travel booking platform
- 24/7 high-quality customer support
10. Eden Corporate Travel
?)
A popular travel agency for corporates, Eden Corporate Travel has provided a comprehensive suite of travel management services to Australian companies for nearly 45 years. From car hire to conference planning, Eden aims to streamline the corporate travel process and provide solutions at all stages of a business trip. Their stand-out features include:
- An extensive list of partners including airlines and hotels through membership to the Helloworld Business Travel group
- Travel insurance services
- Visa application support
- Dedicated service with 24/7 customer support
G2 rating: None Capterra rating: None
Reasons why Eden Travel customers have moved to TravelPerk in the past year:
- TravelPerk offers a consumer-grade platform where travellers can book their own trips
- Integration with travel policy to budget compliance
- Centralised invoicing
- Integration with other popular software, such as expense and HR management tools
It’s time to make booking corporate travel simple
With a corporate travel management platform in place, it’s never been easier as a travel manager to organise corporate travel and finally ditch working with multiple travel agencies. It’s time to get that return on investment for business travel that your company deserves. You don’t need an award-winning travel company, but you do need one that’s trusted by hundreds of happy customers. Take a look at TravelPerk testimonials on
Capterra
and G2
. If you’ve not already explored the potential benefits of a travel management software, make sure TravelPerk is first on your list!
?)
?)
?)
?)