AUSTRALIA
The Smart Choice
TRAVEL
INTUITION
The evolution emerging in
university travel programs
Published / Apr 2017
02
The changing world of academic travel
From mandated travel policies and
technology ecosystems, to the
growing appetite for more collaborative
partnerships, value-adding services
and corporate practices… the university
travel sector is evolving. Campus Travel
reveals the shift currently occurring in
Australian university travel management,
and what these changes mean for
academic travellers.
1. Travel program consolidation
More universities are now forming strategic partnerships
with a single travel management company (TMC) rather than
maintaining a disparate approach of working with multiple travel
suppliers in a panel environment. A single TMC arrangement
benefits universities with booking efficiencies, a one-stop-shop
approach and importantly a ‘single source of truth’ for travel
expenditure reporting and analysis.
Upshot for the traveller:
There are many benefits of having a consolidated travel program
in the academic sector. Consolidation provides one easy
point of contact for all travel sourcing, planning and booking.
Travellers can develop more personal relationships with a travel
consultant they know and trust, and by having a team that is
contractually accountable for their service levels – the quality of
service remains high. One travel provider means all services are
managed in-house including 24/7 global emergency assistance.
During the past 12 months in particular,
Campus Travel has identified a transition
in the way universities are procuring
and managing their travel programs.
While university cultures are focused
on delivering innovation and best
practice in education, the sector’s travel
management processes – until recently
– remain cumbersome and unchanged.
As the longest running and dominant
travel management company in this
space, Campus Travel has been helping
tertiary institutions uncover opportunities
for greater efficiencies, cost savings and
traveller benefits. Slowly but surely, the
tide is changing and more universities
are embracing dramatic changes for
travel procurement and management.
University benefits:
Universities have the potential to shave hundreds of thousands
of dollars off their travel expenditure through the consolidation
process. An organisation that has full visibility of its activity and
spend, has essential data to plan, negotiate and implement
change far more strategically. More knowledge of what and
how your organisation is spending in a procurement category
provides greater power for volume-based negotiations
with suppliers, which ultimately means more savings
for individual travellers.
“Universities are now forming strategic
partnerships with a single travel
management company rather than
maintaining a disparate approach
of working with multiple travel
suppliers in a panel environment.”
campustravel.com.au | 1300 882 021
03
2. Cost reduction strategies
3. Mandating travel policies
An uncertain economic environment, combined with
grant cutbacks in key sectors such as health and medical
research, is causing a downturn in research activity and
work opportunities among scientists. A recent report by the
Australian Society for Medical Research (ASMR) confirms
five years of no growth in funding by the National Health and
Medical Research Council, leading to a fall in grant rates and
scientific workforce numbers. The report states many scientists
are unsure about their future employment prospects in the
industry, with more than 80% of those surveyed considering
alternative careers. While federal initiatives such as the Medical
Research Future Fund will help address this issue in time,
university spending on research travel is currently in decline.
Mandating travel policy used to be considered a ‘dirty’ word in
the academic sector. This is no longer the case. The corporate
sector has long been leading the way in achieving best practice
in travel program management and now universities are
heading in the same direction. With more tertiary organisations
focused on becoming commercially minded travel policies are
being actively enforced.
As part of the Flight Centre Travel Group, Campus Travel
is acutely aware of what constitutes best practice in the
corporate sector. This has benefited all of our academic clients
with the scope of insight and advice not readily available from
other travel companies.
Upshot for the traveller:
Expenditure cuts are likely to result in greater restrictions
around what travellers are allowed to book, such as more
economical types and classes of travel for airfares and hotel
accommodation. A good TMC however will always work with
a university to ensure that any supplier deal represents good
value and incorporates the appropriate level of safety and
comfort for travellers.
University benefits:
The current environment gives universities good reason to
reassess their travel programs and supplier agreements,
benchmark their existing rates against those provided to other
universities, and if necessary, improve their program and
renegotiate with suppliers to help reduce their overall travel
costs. It also provides an opportunity to introduce or update
existing travel policies (as detailed in the following point), and
educate their travellers on the cost, productivity and safety
benefits of complying with those policies.
Key changes in university travel programs
• Partnerships with sole travel management
providers rather than multiple suppliers
• Travel cost cutting
• New and tighter travel policies
• More focus on value-adding supplier relationships
As part of this trend – regulations are being implemented
in universities for the booking and approval process, use of
suppliers, spend limits and reimbursement rules. They are
increasingly aware of the savings that can be achieved by
using policies that help to minimise spend ‘leakage’ to nonpreferred travel suppliers.
Upshot for the traveller:
The academic sector traditionally has fostered a culture
of ‘freedom of choice’ for their staff travellers. This type of
environment was supported at an organisational level by many
universities as travel has often been seen as a favourable
component of a role. The introduction of a policy mandate and
more regulated travel environment has and will not sit well for
many academics. However TMCs are working hard to ensure
that universities can effectively strike the right balance between
commercial and individual traveller objectives.
University benefits:
Mandating a travel policy is one of the first steps a university
can take on its journey to a high-performing travel program.
One of the most important benefits is that a mandated policy
directly supports and enhances a university’s travel risk
management programs by enabling travel providers to track,
alert and help travellers more readily in an emergency situation.
A well designed and easy to understand travel policy will
ensure a university can negotiate more competitive contractual
deals with suppliers. Supplier arrangements will have been
negotiated on the university’s anticipated hotel or air volumes.
• Creation of tech ‘ecosystems’ to streamline
the booking to procurement process
• Greater emphasis on staff productivity
• Integration of FBT and travel diaries to manage
leisure travel.
campustravel.com.au | 1300 882 021
04
4. Looking for added value
5. The ‘Technology Ecosystem’
Nowadays, universities want supplier partnerships that are
more collaborative and deliver increased value for their travel
volume. Campus Travel is in the unique position of being able
to add significant value to our university partnerships because
of the broad scope of products and services that are available
as part of FCTG. We offer a range of businesses, as part of
our FCTG Extras package - that our customers can use at a
reduced cost - :
With many stakeholders to satisfy, budgets to meet, large
volumes of travellers and data to coordinate, Campus Travel
has been instrumental in helping universities to create
technology ecosystems. These ecosystems encompass
tools and products for every step of the searching,
sourcing, approval, booking, payment, reconciliation and
reporting process. They provide the technology backbone
for a university travel program and are not only integrated
and interconnected – but provide easy-to-use and smart
functionality to streamline the experience for the end user.
A streamlined program and travel ecosystem can reduce
booking time and reconciliation by 85%.
•Healthwise
•Moneywise
•GoldMind
• 4th Dimension Business Travel Consulting
One of our most successful value adds has been the ‘FCTG
Graduate Program’ that supports university courses that
involve internship and workplace learning. Additionally as
part of FCTG’s corporate division, Campus Travel has the
advantage of being able to benchmark university travel
program performance against FCTG’s corporate customers.
This has provided unique insight and comparative data to
Campus Travel’s clients – they can’t get elsewhere.
For both travellers and bookers, the technology ecosystem
provides an efficient, user-friendly way to organise every
aspect of each trip with the minimum amount of hassle. They
provide options that are within policy, can be logged into from
most mobile devices and increase productivity at every step.
Travellers benefit from tools such as the Campus Mobile App,
which allows travellers to manage their itineraries and flight
bookings, check in, receive alerts for flight delays, and access
destination information and more.
Upshot for the traveller:
Value-driven partnerships with TMCs ultimately deliver more
comfort, perks and luxuries for individual travellers. From
exclusively negotiated programs, deals and arrangements to
special waivers and favours, individual travellers have a rich
network of products and services they can tap into as part of
their travel environment.
For the organisation:
Strategic alignment and collaborative partnerships enable
universities to leverage the full benefits of their travel volume.
They also ensure the university can make the most of the
products and services that each of their suppliers bring
to the table.
Upshot for the traveller:
For the organisation:
Travel technology ecosystems streamline, simplify and improve
all elements of travel management…from planning, searching
and booking processes to expense management. They help
ensure each booking is made in accordance with the travel
policy, and give the university valuable reporting and insights
into booking behaviours within and across all faculties and
departments. With this information, universities can better
understand the impacts of their behaviour on total
travel costs.
Travel ‘ecosystems’ encompass
online tools for every step of the
searching, sourcing, approval,
booking, payment, reconciliation and
reporting process.
campustravel.com.au | 1300 882 021
05
6. Increasing productivity
There is a heightened emphasis on helping university staff
to be more productive – in both the travel planning and
booking process, and in the journey itself. The quest for
greater productivity is influencing the systems universities are
putting in place; whether it be pre-trip platforms that can be
customised to provide multiple workflows and eliminate paperbased approval processes, or intuitive online bookings tools
that make booking travel easy. Another important element of
increasing productivity is to ensure travel bookers have access
to travel ‘content’. That is, within the online environment the
travel booker can access multiple distribution streams such
as non-GDS carriers (Jetstar, REX), non-GDS hotels and
accessing hotel content from the likes of Expedia.
This eliminates the need for travel bookers to spend time
searching on multiple websites. It keeps them within the
technology ecosystem, and importantly within policy.
Upshot for the traveller:
With more and more business travellers adding leisure travel
components to their work trips universities are implementing
robust processes to integrate mandatory travel diaries and FBT
requirements into the booking process. The rise of ‘bleisure’
(business + leisure) travel across the academic is another
reason why universities are interested in having the right online
platforms to support their processes.
When travellers extend a work trip to include personal travel
there is the potential for FBT liability should a trip include more
than 50% of personal travel. It is vital that a university collect
the FBT liability from the traveller, as this is an Australian Tax
Office requirement. There are heavy fines for non-compliance
and universities need to ensure they have the right systems in
place to flag that FBT is payable and to calculate what the tax
liability is for the traveller.
Academic travellers and bookers will save time from more
efficient processes such as the use of online booking
tools. Having access to all air, hotel and car content in the
one system streamlines the entire experience. Ensuring
travellers have access to tools such as mobile apps,
travel hubs or portals and mobile phone based expense
management systems for receipts is all part of the
new-look travel ecosystem.
7. Improving fringe benefit tax
(FBT) compliance
Implications for travellers:
• The right online system will make the process less onerous.
• The FBT component is completed prior to travel,
eliminating messy post travel processes.
• These tools give the traveller the opportunity to amend
their travel plans to reduce or eliminate any FBT liability
prior to ticketing.
For the organisation:
As with all industries, the automation and integration from a
technological ecosystem saves a significant amount of time
and resources for employers. Less resources are required
to keep track of the traditional paper trail, which means faster
and more accurate processing. Increased usage of online
tools also provide universities with greater visibility of travel
spend and activity.
Implications for a university:
• New online platforms help universities to comply
with FBT legislation.
• Online platforms facilitate an improved approval process.
• FBT and travel reporting can now be produced
which helps to streamline the process.
For further information on the changes your university can implement to streamline its travel management, please speak
to your Campus Travel Team or representative.
campustravel.com.au | 1300 882 021
AUSTRALIA
The Smart Choice
For more information please call 1300 882 021
Australian OpCo Pty Ltd (ABN 20 003 279 534) trading as Campus Travel. ATAS Accreditation No: A10412. CT51_160416