Corporate Travel Basics

Digital process for approving trips, meetings, bookings, exceptions, invoices or expense reports.

Travel undertaken by employees, contractors or guests for professional purposes.

Process of adding missing metadata such as cost center, traveler ID, project code, tax data or booking source to transactions.

Employer responsibility to support employee safety and wellbeing during business travel.

Reservation network used by agencies and TMCs to access and book air, hotel and car content.

Airline industry association that defines standards and systems relevant to distribution, ticketing and settlement.

Traveler’s trip plan, usually including flights, hotels, car rental, meetings and destination details.

Metric used to measure travel program performance, such as savings, adoption, leakage, compliance or invoice cycle time.

Time between request, booking or RFP submission and actual travel or event date.

Portion of travel or meeting spend governed by approved suppliers, policy, negotiated terms and reporting.

Structured corporate travel program using policy, preferred suppliers, booking channels, payment processes and reporting.

IATA technical standard enabling richer airline retailing, offers, ancillaries and direct or aggregated distribution.

Digital booking interface for travel reservations, often used interchangeably with OBT in corporate travel.

Corporate-approved tool for booking travel within policy, capturing data and supporting spend control.

Booking made outside approved corporate channels such as the OBT, TMC or managed meeting platform.

Share of bookings made through the approved digital platform instead of offline service channels.

Booking that violates corporate travel rules, such as rate cap, cabin class, supplier, advance booking or approval requirements.

Reservation record containing traveler, itinerary, ticketing and service information.

Required approval before booking or traveling, often based on cost, destination, policy exception or risk level.

Management of traveler data such as preferences, loyalty numbers, passport data, policy eligibility and payment details.

Maximum reimbursable or bookable amount for flights, hotels, meals or other travel expenses.

Measured financial benefit from negotiated rates, avoided costs, rebooking, compliance or process automation.

Traveler or arranger books directly through an approved online platform rather than using offline agent support.

Contractual or operational commitment defining service quality, response times or processing performance.

Booking made directly with airline, hotel or venue rather than through the approved TMC or corporate platform.

Travel program practices that reduce or track environmental impact, often including CO2 reporting and hotel sustainability data.

Company that manages corporate travel services such as booking, servicing, supplier programs, reporting and traveler support.

Individual business travel, typically for short-term trips, as distinct from group, meetings or longstay travel.

Person who books or manages travel on behalf of another traveler or group of travelers.

Corporate role responsible for travel policy, suppliers, traveler experience, savings, risk and program performance.

Process of identifying, monitoring and responding to traveler safety, security, health or disruption risks.

Business reason for travel, used for approvals, analytics, compliance and cost allocation.

Paid airline ticket value not yet flown or refunded, often tracked for reuse or recovery.