Being a travel manager is far from easy. As occurs in many other jobs, apart from having training and experience in the sector, a good company travel manager needs to have certain traits or characteristics. Here, we describe four traits often shared by business travel management professionals. Check them out!
1. Knowing how to listen
Travel managers cannot be present on all the trips made by the professionals they manage. Satisfaction surveys do not always give the full picture of the complex reality. This means it is important to talk to the people you are providing the service to, asking them questions after a trip and listening to their comments, requests and experiences in order to extract valuable information. This will help you learn from their answers and provide a better service.
2. Knowing how to communicate
A travel manager must not only receive information from those making the trips. You also have to know how to communicate with them. Travel policies, protocols in the event of an emergency, processes and work flows in travel requests and approval of expenses... Forget pompous explanations, enormous manuals or taking things for granted. If a travel manager communicates them well so the procedures, rules and other elements can be understood, it makes it so much easier for others to follow them.
3. Be calculating
Although we sometimes associate negative values to this attribute, it can often be very positive. For the person responsible for company travel management to be “calculating” means having quantified everything, having predicted possible scenarios, the direct and also indirect benefits generated by the trip and having carefully assessed all the potential suppliers, etc.
4. Be connected
Typically, a travel manager is the point of contact with the worker when the latter is on a corporate trip, the person to turn to if there are doubts, any mishaps or if new needs arise. For good travel management, you need to be connected and available, have the information to hand and be able to respond quickly if necessary.
