How to write a corporate travel policy

It is written by the team behind GTOS, the Global Travel Operating System from Voraal, and is built on operating experience across 100,000+ trips. You can use the guide even if you are not a GTOS customer. Where a step maps to the product, the feature page is linked.

1. State the purpose and the scope

Open with why the policy exists: to keep people safe enough to travel, to control cost, and to be fair about what the company will pay for. Then state who it covers. Employees are obvious. Also decide how you will treat contractors, candidates, guests and board members. If they book in the same path, they need a rule. If they do not, say so, so informal exceptions do not become the real policy.

Name the trip types in scope: domestic, regional and long-haul; meetings and events; and, if relevant, project or site travel. A policy that pretends every trip is the same will be ignored.

2. Write rules by designation, department and destination

The most usable policies are structured, not narrative. For each class of traveller, and for each class of destination, state:

- When air travel is allowed, and in which cabin, including any duration trigger for a higher cabin.

- How hotels are chosen, including a cap, a preferred set, or both, and what happens in a high-demand city.

- What the company will pay for in rail, transfers, car rental and related services.

- How far in advance a trip should be booked, where that is realistic.

- What is never in policy without a named exception, for example additional nights for leisure.

Write these as statements a booking engine could apply, not as slogans. “Be reasonable” is not a rule. “Economy for flights under this duration, unless a documented medical or client need is approved” is a rule.

In GTOS, those statements become rules by designation, department and destination, checked on every option. See travel policy.

3. Design the exception path before you need it

Every policy is tested by a trip that does not fit. If you do not design the exception path, travellers will invent one. State:

- Who may request an out-of-policy option.

- Who may approve it, by role and by amount.

- What evidence should sit on the request.

- How the decision will be recorded.

In GTOS, out-of-policy choices are flagged and routed on approval chains taken from the organisation chart, with an audit trail. That is the operational form of this section, and the basis of a policy compliance programme.

4. Put duty of care and documents in the policy

A travel policy that is silent on readiness is incomplete. State that travellers must keep passport and visa information current, that documents should be available before departure, and that the company needs a way to know who is travelling. Visa decisions rest with the authorities; the policy can require readiness, not a particular official outcome. Use the duty of care checklist as a companion.

5. Say how the policy will be applied and reviewed

Name the system of record for bookings. If travel booked outside that path will not be reimbursed, say so plainly. Name who owns the policy, how often it is reviewed, and how changes will be communicated. Align the document and the rules after every review, not only at launch of a new tool.

Finance should be able to read compliance next to spend. If your software cannot do that, the policy will be hard to govern. In GTOS, compliance sits with spend on the same trip record.

6. Keep the language short enough to use

A policy that runs to dozens of pages will not be read on a phone at the moment of booking. Put the rules in tables where you can. Move examples and edge cases to an appendix. Avoid slogans that cannot be applied. This is also a writing task, not only a governance task.

When the draft is ready, load it into a booking path and try three trips: a routine return, a multi-city routing, and an out-of-policy request. If the document and the software disagree, fix them before you publish. A demo of GTOS can use your draft policy as the ruleset; book one if you want to see that test on My Mobility and in the Client Portal.

USD is the main currency on this site. Pricing for GTOS is in USD and available on request.