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For the past 3 articles, we have gone over trip planning checklists, itinerary creation, and communication. For our last article in the series, we are going to go over some of the biggest travel planning pain points admins experience. TRAVO is the only trip planning and booking tool created specifically for administrative professionals. We have spent the past two years teaming up with organizations like IAAP and speaking to thousands of admins from around the world to help create a one-stop shop for administrative professionals based off the following six largest travel planning pain points.

 

1. Learning a new traveler’s preferences.

Onboarding new travelers is a lengthy process. Most admins have created traveler preference forms to send to new employees. However, this still requires you to take this information and either store it in a physical folder, or manually enter it into a spreadsheet. Even after all this work, you will still have to refer back to these notes to view preferences and traveler information for booking.

TRAVO allows you to easily create traveler profiles and add new employees to your team. When a new team member is invited, they can instantly start filling out their profile and adding their preferences. As they do this, their information is automatically shared with you. TRAVO is also PCI DSS and https secured. This means all of your traveler’s information is encrypted and password protected making it the safest way for you and your traveler to share their sensitive traveler information.

Lastly, TRAVO will automatically apply all of your traveler’s profile to their search results. Preferred brands appear with a red heart for easy reference. Then, as soon as you select a flight, hotel, or rental car we will load in your traveler’s information, including loyalty numbers. All you have to do is click book.

2. Creating itineraries when I don’t have all the needed information.

  

You face a monumental challenge every time you start to plan a trip. Not only do you need to find flights, hotels, and rental cars that fit your traveler’s preference and budget, but you also have to do it using incomplete information. Many have shared that their traveler will tell them where they need to be, but often leave out the when. Then, tracking down and getting a response from your traveler is another challenge in and of itself!

TRAVO has created a travel request form for you to share with your traveler. In this form, we have included all of the necessary information to create an itinerary. Whenever your traveler has an upcoming trip, they can just fill out this form and we will automatically email you a summary of their request. Now, your travelers will be able to send trip requests with a click of a button and you’ll be able to easily refer back to it, see their scheduled meetings, and preferred providers.

Check out our example travel request form using the link below!

https://www.travo.com/groups/646b22df135243a1a99d663836bd5c5a/request

For a personalized link, click “Trip Request Form” on your preferences page.

3. Not being able to efficiently compare multiple brands at once.

Many travelers and companies who do not use travel agencies prefer to book directly with the airlines and hotels. This was the best available option for collecting points and gaining access to higher levels of customer service. However, it requires you to open up 5+ windows and rerun the same search countless times.

TRAVO works directly with the airlines, hotels, and rental companies to provide you with the most seamless booking process possible. Whenever you make a search on TRAVO, you will be able to compare across all major providers in one single tab. And, when you book, it is passed directly to the provider so you see their name (ie: American Airlines) on your credit card statement rather than TRAVO’s. We also automatically apply your traveler’s loyalty number to all bookings to make sure they are getting the points they deserve. Lastly, we pride ourselves on having the best customer service out there. We have a 24/7 booking support line that answers within 30 seconds and a live chat to help you as you book.

4. Organizing and suggesting additional options for approvals.

Getting your traveler’s approval is one of the most time consuming parts of travel planning. Not only because your traveler is busy and hard to get in touch with, but also because they are picky! No matter how perfect a flight or hotel is, they always want to know about earlier, cheaper or closer options. This leads to lots of back and forth emails, a LOT of screenshots, and even more search tabs.

You can use TRAVO to anticipate these questions and suggest additional options as you are going through the list of results. Any time you see an option that your traveler might like, add it as a suggestion. Because we show you all the results for all the providers, you can suggest as you create the itinerary without opening additional tabs. Then, when the trip is ready send a summary of selected and suggested options with the click of a button. Your traveler will receive an email that allows them to easily compare their options and send you their feedback. All of those back and forth emails can be boiled down to a single exchange.

5. Creating an end-to-end itinerary.

After you have finally found the perfect flight, gotten your traveler to approve the trip, and entered all of your traveler’s information for booking, you still have the task of creating your traveler’s end-to-end itinerary. End-to-end itineraries include confirmation numbers, meeting locations, times, and expected traffic conditions. We’ve found that travelers also prefer reviewing an end-to-end itinerary as it is the easiest way to make sense of a trip. 

TRAVO builds out your itinerary as you search. Whenever you select a flight, we add it to your itinerary and we will automatically update that flight with confirmation numbers after you book. The same goes for hotels and rental cars. You can also add all of your traveler’s meetings and events on TRAVO. As you add meetings, you have the option of adding in the meeting’s local time zone or in your own and we will automatically convert it for you. TRAVO is also integrated with Google Calendar which means your itinerary has turn-by-turn directions and expected traffic. We then take all of this information and make it easy for you to export and share with your traveler.

6. Providing my traveler with a printed, mobile, and calendar itinerary.

This last step is probably the most frustrating because of how monotonous it is. As a result of increased smartphone prevalence, admins need to provide their travelers with 3 versions of the same itinerary: one printed, one mobile, and one calendar itinerary.

This process is painless and easy with TRAVO. After you add all of your traveler’s meetings and book their flights, your trip is all ready for export. Every TRAVO itinerary can be downloaded as a Word Document where you can add notes and easily print for your traveler in case their phone dies. We automatically create a mobile-friendly itinerary that you can share with your traveler. Lastly, download the itinerary as an ICS file and drag and drop into your traveler’s calendar.

You can see an example of a mobile itinerary by opening this link on your phone:

https://www.travo.com/trips/26c61591ba8a4cb8ad212a3e45f2f496/

Or check out a printable itinerary:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3xstAS9UboqZTdBbUNwejhiUUE/view?usp=sharing 

TRAVO could not be where it is today if not for the incredible support we have received from the admin community. We are so proud of what we have built and would love the opportunity to help you plan and book travel. The product has come a long way, but we are always looking for ways to improve and solve even more pain points. If you have any questions or feedback, please feel free to reach out to us at help@travo.com

You can also sign up for a free account by going to www.travo.com/iaap.