From the Ground Up: The Value of Corporate Travel Policy

by Blacklane Team / April 1, 2025

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

According to the GBTA, global spending on business travel is expected to reach $1.64 trillion in 2025, up from $1.48 trillion in 2024. With spend of this magnitude, a robust policy is essential to mitigate risk, inefficiencies, overspending, and employee dissatisfaction. Most businesses have clear policies for air, accommodation and rail, but ground transportation is often omitted. The benefits of a robust ground transportation policy range from budget and data management to enhanced traveler wellbeing and duty of care, meaning businesses could be missing out if they fail to create policies around this key sector.

What does a good travel policy look like?

A good travel policy needs to work for both the business and the traveler. It is not just a guide for employees to follow, but a document articulating the culture of the business as a whole.

One of the main requirements for a robust travel policy is clarity. When we spoke with Program Manager, Allie Coughlin, she stated, “People want to do the right thing. Travelers aren’t looking to game the system.” A short, simple and clear policy can aid this. Ensuring that your guidelines are easy to understand and provide reassurance to your travelers is an essential first step in policy creation.

“Policy is often viewed in a negative light. It should impact the user in the right way, providing clarity that they’re doing the right thing,” shared Allie. We need to consider who is using the policy and why, communicating its role in helping travelers, not being a set of convoluted rules designed to trip people up. However, there still needs to be flexibility within the policy. Whilst clarity is essential, creating a set of guidelines that are too rigid may not meet the objective of helping the traveler. 

“There are always exceptions. Does your policy change depending on time of day? Do you have separate considerations for different travelers?” explains Pete Snowdon, Director of Commercial UK, TAG. This can be a hard line to walk. Clarity, but with room for exceptions. Simplicity, but coverage for a vast number of potential situations. It can feel like an incredibly high bar. 

And this is where communication comes in. Your travelers need to know what is in the policy and how to use it. Creating a clear, flexible, easy to apply policy is great, but don’t expect travelers to sit down and read it.

“You need to have your messaging where the travelers are. Include policy messaging in the booking tool for example,” suggests Allie. Ultimately, a great policy is only as good as the travelers’ ability to access and understand it. Ensuring it works for everyone involved — travelers and the business alike — requires time and consideration, but the benefits can be enormous, as we’ll discuss later.

Why is ground transportation overlooked?

We’ve established what makes a great travel policy, but when speaking to industry experts, it became apparent that ground transportation is rarely included or mandated.

A recurring hurdle for ground transportation, when it comes to mandating travel policy, is the fragmentation of the market. Unlike the airline sector, who created a Global Distribution System (GDS) to standardize bookings, ground transportation remains a series of different providers and disparate services.

“Ground transport didn’t have the same origins as air or hotel. It was word of mouth and direct to traveler,” explains Program Manager, Allie Coughlin. “This is changing, and companies are now investing in APIs. This opens up a much bigger channel of aggregation.”

Technology was undoubtedly a huge obstacle for ground transportation companies and travel managers alike when looking to create policies around usage. Up until recently technology didn’t exist to integrate ground transportation into OBTs and therefore policy.

Pete Snowdon of TAG agrees. “Ground transportation is the hardest area to manage. What ends up happening is travelers are just trusted to do the right thing because it almost feels impossible for [travel managers] to capture it. It leads to a lot of traveler and booker discretion.” 

This is slowly changing. However, despite the technological advances, it is traveler behavior which can prove to be a blocker. Travelers are used to having freedom of choice with ground transportation. Introducing policies means changing behaviors, which is hard to do. But, as Allie points out, “You can’t influence traveler behavior without a set of guidelines.”

Another factor contributing to ground transportation’s omission from travel policy is related to cost. With ground transportation often being the smallest area of travel spend, Pete’s explanation of why many travelers are left to use their discretion can be understood. The effort vs. the value gained can feel like it doesn’t add up. 

“There’s a lot of emphasis on flights and hotels, and the last bit of the journey is forgotten,” he points out. It appears that ground transportation is often overlooked due to complexity of process and a lack of understanding around the value such work could bring. 

But what are the benefits inclusion in policy could bring to the traveler and business?

How does integrating ground transportation benefit travel policies?

Integration and the end-to-end journey are two phrases we talk about a lot in business travel. To truly embody these principles and have a comprehensive travel policy, all elements of the journey need to be considered — including ground transportation. And there are huge benefits to be had, for both businesses and travelers alike.

From a budget management and reporting perspective, integrating ground transportation into your travel policy not only gives you the ability to accurately manage budgets and spend, but it brings with it data and reporting capabilities. In short, a comprehensive and accurate overview of your travel program.

“The role of the travel manager is to provide diligence. Can you report on compliance? Spend? Without a policy there are really great data elements that will be missed,” states Allie Coughlin.

Budget concerns are not limited to the travel manager either. By mandating ground transportation policy and integrating preferred suppliers into your booking process, travelers don’t need to worry about reimbursement, either because of lengthy expense processes or getting it ‘wrong’ and having their expense declined.

Allie goes on to explain, “Without policy you still have to have guidelines. What is the rate limit? What can you spend per day? What is reasonable? This makes it more stressful for the traveler.” 

We cannot underestimate traveler experience in the benefits integrating ground transportation into travel policy brings. Pre-booked travel not only removes uncertainty, but it gives visibility of movement. 

“Often it’s the last bit of the journey that is forgotten, but usually that’s the riskiest bit,” says Pete Snowdon. “Travel Management exists to allow the traveler to get to wherever they are going and perform, with the least amount of worry and stress.”

Ensuring your traveler is empowered to make the best choices, and that in doing so you are increasing productivity and safety, are two huge benefits for your business.  When it comes to integrating ground transportation into travel policies, Allie Coughlin summarizes it perfectly:

“Travelers are looking to have the most comfortable experience they can, within the guidelines of their company. The travel policy establishes those guidelines and the clearer you are, the simpler and easier it is for the travelers.” 

In summary

The importance of a robust travel policy is undeniable, and recognized by virtually all travel managers, travel buyers and travelers themselves. However, the omission of ground transportation leaves a gap for several essential elements of a travel program, including budgeting, reporting, duty of care and traveler wellbeing. 

With technological advancements, as well as a growing desire for an integrated, fully managed program, companies now need to consider how to integrate ground transportation into their existing polices, and which suppliers are able to work with them to achieve these goals. 

Whilst it is undeniably a challenging piece of work, the benefits far outweigh the investment. And as always, Blacklane can be by your side, ready to take the journey with you.