While the major business travel agencies are moving towards the Travel Management 3.0Small businesses in France are often still at the "do-it-yourself" stage. In any case, this is what a study published on 8 December by Ticket Travel Pro. According to a survey of around one hundred French SMEs carried out for Edenred's business travel division, 70% of SMEs manage their expense accounts without any tool. In 64% of cases, these small structures do not even have any reporting. Travel policy is therefore steered by sight - and above all by hindsight - with all the unpleasant surprises that entails...
The managers of these small businesses are not the only ones to suffer from this lack of optimisation. In fact, a large majority of business travellers (86%) say that they pay their business expenses with their personal card. In four out of ten companies (41%), advances are made available to the employee.
The study published by Ticket Travel Pro also presents, in the form of an infographic, a typology of business travel and related expenditure. While most business trips (80%) are limited to the domestic market, air travel is still the largest item of expenditure. Air tickets - and ancillary costs - account for 29% of the travel budget of SME-SMIs, barely more than hotels (27%). Petrol (12%), restaurants (10%), taxis and urban transport (10%) and car hire (7%) complete this travel budget. More surprisingly, the rail budget comes last, accounting for only 5% of travel expenditure.
The Ticket Travel Pro infographic can be found here :
