Cost Saving Travel Tips For Small Businesses

Guest Post by Tiffany Larson, FlightCar :: Travel expenses are often one of the easiest ways for a small business to unknowingly hemorrhage money until it’s too late to remedy. Fortunately, there are a few quick hacks to turn that travel budget from terror to triumph:

Don’t travel at all. Seriously. Too many times I’ve seen business owners emotionally justify an outrageously expensive business trip without keeping close track of their return on investment. Creating a spreadsheet comparing travel expenses and sales is absolutely essential, even if it doesn’t fully account for all the multipliers that would rationalize a business trip. This can be true in sales professions specifically where wining and dining is a financial crapshoot to increase purchasing. Before booking that ticket, create a realistic expectation of your ROI, find a way to quantify your desired results, and then keep track of your success alongside your travel budget. If your estimated return doesn’t come close to covering your travel expenses for the next year, it might be worth looking into video chatting or spending a little more on client appreciation gifts.

Now you’ve weighed through the financial benefits and this trip is an unavoidable necessity. ITA Matrix is hands down the best way to search for flights in your budget. It features software that allows you to look for the cheapest flights through all major airlines, not just the ones from which the website receives commission. Although you can’t book any flights through ITA Matrix, the extra step of directly buying the ticket from the airline could save you hundreds each time you travel.

The emerging sharing economy has given individuals the ability to connect their excesses with other people’s needs for extra cash, and FlightCar is this quintessential example in the rental car industry. FlightCar’s business model allows travelers to substantially benefit on multiple levels by allowing them to park their car at the airport for free with the potential of renting it out for extra cash, and offering the guaranteed lowest rental car prices in the industry. Additional discounts are even available if a traveler lists their vehicle and rents a FlightCar vehicle at the same time! There’s nothing like coming home to a fat check in your name after a long trip.

Food expenses are another easy way travel costs can run rampant. Look for discounts at restaurants through websites like Groupon or Gilt City a few days in advance of your arrival. It’s important to read the fine print before you buy, but typically these promotions can offer around 50% off of your meal. Book a hotel, or Airbnb, with a refrigerator for leftovers and you’ve just cut your food costs down to less than a third.

For the infrequent business traveler, some of these tips may seem like marginal methods of cost cutting at the beginning. However, these overtime savings through alternative spending are not only guaranteed effective, the techniques to acquire these savings help reinforce an awareness to spending in an easily forgotten category of the budget.

Tiffany Larson is the human swiss army knife of FlightCar with a proven track record of moving concepts into reality. She transitioned into this roll from an operations management position with an Italian wine importer in the Bay Area. In her spare time she sings in a country soul band and successfully builds structurally unsound furniture.