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Business travel policies do not always suffice to control costs.

This is one of the key findings of the 8th wave of the Observatory of Professional Travel, conducted by OpinionWay for Cegid and Corporate Mobilities with 505 business travelers.

The study analyzes 25 observed behaviors throughout the travel journey, from trip preparation to return.

It highlights a less visible portion of business travel costs: the costs linked to travellers’ habits, trade-offs, and routines.

According to the study, between 20% and 50% of business travellers regularly adopt behaviours that could raise the cost of their trips.

The use of taxis and ride-hailing services is one of the main examples: 55% of respondents say they take a taxi or a ride-hailing service without checking available alternatives. Furthermore, 48% rely on an assistant to make a reservation when they could do it themselves.

The same proportion uses their company car even though other transport modes might be relevant.

Another observed behaviour: 43% of travellers add extra services to their initial booking. For Cegid and Corporate Mobilities, these practices do not necessarily reflect a desire to bypass rules or to spend more.

They would rather be linked to a combination of personal and organizational factors: habits, search for comfort or efficiency, but also rules deemed inappropriate, tools that are not user-friendly, and processes that are too complex.

“While the study reveals a strong willingness to change behavior, a single rule is not sufficient to modify practices. It needs to be accompanied by simple, flexible and comprehensive tools“, notes Laurent Lassure, Product Marketing Manager for Cegid Notilus at Cegid.

The study also reveals a genuine willingness to change. Depending on the behaviours studied, between 68% and 90% of travellers say they are ready to modify their practices when they are not systematic or regular.

But this evolution depends on the environment provided by the company. The main levers identified are first organizational: rules better adapted to the activity’s constraints (27%), booking tools that are simpler and faster (26%), clearer rules (26%), and streamlined processes (25%). Travellers thus seem to expect more system evolution than a simple injunction to change their habits.

The study also compares the impact of different types of internal policies. Implementing an obligatory travel policy, based on highly structured rules and limited autonomy, improves behaviours, but only moderately.

According to the practices, the gain ranges from 5 to 16 points compared to organizations without a travel policy. In terms of using a taxi or a VTC when other alternatives exist, the improvement would be only 4.5 points.

The introduction of a formalized sustainable mobility policy, however, emerges as the most decisive factor of the study. It improves behaviors by 15 to 38 points depending on the observed practices compared to organizations that do not have one. For the authors, such a policy helps create a framework in which behavioral changes become more natural.

The car remains central in professional travel.

More than half of those surveyed prefer their company or personal vehicle, even when other solutions could be relevant.

This raises questions about the alignment between mobility policies and corporate travel policies, as well as the degree of freedom given to employees in choosing their mode of transport.

The study also examines the different moments along a business trip. It identifies the preparation phase, or “pre-booking,” as one of the main optimization levers. At this stage, the cost of the trip remains largely modifiable, with a “changeability” estimated between 79% and 88%.

During the booking, the cost remains adjustable, but with less leeway, ranging between 68% and 90% depending on the studied behaviours.

Once the trip has started, the cost is largely committed and requires more structural transformations.

After the trip, it becomes visible through expenses and reporting data, but it is then too late to act on costs already incurred.

“It is precisely the pre-booking and its highest changeability on which organisations should focus first in a context where providers predominantly concentrate on the booking phase,” says Jérôme Fouque, cofounder of Corporate Mobilities.

The study thus concludes that action must be taken upstream of the trip. For companies, cost control would therefore not rely solely on stricter travel policies, but also on suitable tools, simplified processes, and a better integration of sustainable mobility considerations.