Top 5 group travel management software options for 2023

Organizing a corporate group trip can be a challenge. Everyone has their own preferences, and you must make them all happy while adhering to a budget and the company travel policy. Some of these challenges include:

• Setting travel dates that suit the most people.
• Finding the best hotel rates.
• Dealing with the differing stay requirements within the group.
• Managing requests and expectations while building team morale and ensuring a successful trip. 
• Finding and booking the trip with all the required approvals. 
• Creating and monitoring tracking spreadsheets, and emails.
• Collecting and consolidating invoices. 
• Tracking costs against your budget manually. 
• Staying abreast of delays and changes. 
• Adapting flights and bookings quickly.

Manually doing all of this is time-consuming and demanding. By the time the arrangements are finalized, you need a holiday yourself.

There has to be a more automated solution to do this, right? The good news is that with the advances in travel technology there most definitely is a better way.

Travel management software is not built just for large enterprises anymore. Companies of all sizes can benefit from travel management software for their group trip and expense management requirements.

Whether you are new to travel management software or looking for alternative options to your current version, we have included the top 5 travel management software options with an overview of what they can offer you.

Let’s look at how using travel management software can simplify the challenges of group travel and give you a great customer experience.

Taking the effort out of group travel

In small business group travel of the past, each employee booked their own trip following the company travel policy. They then claimed a reimbursement.

Nowadays, there are a variety of small business travel services on the market that not only provide an innovative online booking platform, but a chance for your team to save money and streamline the way you book corporate travel.

Larger companies used travel agencies or even travel software solutions with big markups, commissions, and support call fees. You had to find a cost-effective solution to book trips for large groups, book the trips and collect all invoices.

With travel management software, booking group travel becomes a lot easier in the following ways:

• Each employee books for themselves on the system. 
• The travel policy is built-in, so they can only utilize options that comply with your rules. 
• Your company details are built into the system for payment, so there is no need to reimburse the employee later.
• Easy for you to book and manage upcoming group trips 
• Makes it quick to track the travel experience of previous trips. 
• Provides consolidated travel invoices and vendors so you can easily track travel expenses and qualify for bulk spending discounts.
• Provides expense reports.  
• Makes it easy to manage taxes and claim VAT. 
• Saves you time, money, and effort.

Best group booking software tools in the market

There are many travel management system options available across the travel industry, but not all are geared toward group trips. We have listed the latest top 5 travel management software options for group travel with a list of their unique selling points to make group travel easy for you.

1. TravelPerk

TravelPerk is a user-friendly online travel management platform that specializes in corporate travel management. Your group trips are done within your TravelPerk account so you can manage all your business travel in one place.

A trip on TravelPerk can have up to eight travelers. For larger group trips you can use the concierge service. They will help you to enjoy discounted group rates.  

The features and services from TravelPerk include:

• Biggest travel inventory worldwide
• Easy self-booking for travelers in groups of up to eight people
• Automated travel policy compliance and workflow for approvals
• 24/7, 7-star customer support
• Access to real-time travel spending data
• Pay, report, and invoice all company travel with just one account
• Automated VAT recovery so you can claim up to 25% of your group travel VAT
• Group booking for hotels, flights, and rail travel 

TravelPerk also has a specialized Events function. TravelPerk Events makes it easier and faster for you to organize every detail of your events-based business trips. You can do everything from managing attendees and the booking process to scheduling, or choosing locations. All with one click.

Some of the features of this complete solution for meetings and events management include:

• One-stop destination for simple meetings and events travel management: Saves you money and time
• Participants invite: Invite attendees to events and track responses and the status of bookings
• Collaboration: Share trip details like names, logistics, agendas, and more comprehensive travel itineraries with participants
• Communication: Keep attendees updated with additional information or changes to the plan
• Visibility: View travel plans, including arrival and departure times and accommodation details of attendees

TravelPerk is one of the highest-rated travel management software in platforms such as G2 and Capterra.

2. FCM

FCM is a travel management platform-based global company that promises to deliver a new type of travel management.

Their group travel offering caters to all groups and will tailor your group travel management path to your needs and requirements.

Their group travel services include:

• Negotiating fares
• Keep your people in line with your event travel policy
• Cloud-based delegate registration
• Pre- and post-travel management
• Budget management and reconciliation
• Group airfare options, charters, accommodation, and land transfers such as car rentals
• Consolidated travel data reporting
• Day delegate packages and food and beverage packages
• Off-the-shelf team-building, including CSR activities
• 24/7 emergency assistance

3. Youli

Youli is an online platform-based company offering tour operator software to help you organize group trips. Their offering is very different from the services offered by TravelPerk and FCM.

While their platforms are used by  companies to book their group business trips, Youli's solution is aimed at travel booking companies and tour operators to integrate within their website.

They have an interesting Itinerary Creator functionality that is accessible by your travelers 24/7, even when they are offline. The Itinerary Creator offers many functionalities, such as:

• Simple group travel management software able to create individual itineraries and profiles
  • Create opt-ins for pre-trip accommodations, activities, and rentals
  • All documents and tasks are always available to trips guests via a convenient mobile app
  • Integration with Unsplash stock images to help you look professional
• Bookings and payment processing
  • Offer flexible pricing options per individual within the group
  • 0% booking fee options to help you scale and keep more revenue
  • No need for Word docs and Sheets
• Starter travel website with booking integrations
  • High-speed, SEO, and mobile-optimized website with no web development knowledge
  • Time-saving tools and integrations essential for group trip management
  • Affordable custom websites for small travel businesses 
• A supportive community of travel professionals
  • Learn and apply best industry practices
  • Train your team fast with 1:1 consulting

4. Moonstride

Moonstride is a travel management platform built by a team of visionaries, architects, engineers, marketers, and strategic consultants.

They are part of the Vsourz Group, with headquarters in London and offices in the United Kingdom, Spain, Canada, UAE, and India. Their team specializes in travel CRM, booking engines, back office, travel CMS websites, mobile apps, and digital marketing.

They offer an easy-to-use system that helps simplify group travel bookings for tour operators, organizers, and travelers. The system covers the following features for the different users:

Organizers can:

• View, accept, reject and tailor quotes
• Review the details of their booking, from price per person to transfer information
• Turn an estimate into a booking by paying a deposit
• Invite travelers to the group booking to make their choices and payments

Travelers can:

• View invites
• Add their details to a booking
• Invite other travelers
• Choose their packages and options
• Pay for their spot 
• Make payments
• Choose the travelers to pay for
• Pick their packages and options
• Pay online via credit card or request a bank transfer

Your business can:

• Receiving inquiries
• Building a quote
• Creates an itinerary for the booking
• Managing bookings
• Tailor packages
• Handle operations
• Delivering reports
• Chase payments
• Liaise with suppliers
• Integrate with other systems

5. Groupdesk

Groupdesk is a B2B White Label Solution that helps you simplify your group travel business by bringing all the working parts online. They have revolutionized how your company sells group travel and manages online bookings.

With Groupdesk you can tailor and manage different types of trips. You can create any type of product inventory and price points to sell, from 5-star hotel suites, shared dorms, and insurance to ski rentals.

It offers a travel agent interface where travel planners can manage and control their products and sales. It also has a traveler interface where travelers make bookings and organize their trips.

The system features include:

• Automatic Recurring Payments
• B2B White Label Solution
• Brand Control
• 24/7 Bookings
• Tailored Experiences and Itinerary creation
• Marketing and Communication
• CRM and Sales
• Traveler Self-Management
• Inventory and Supplier Management 

Among these options, there is one that stands out in the features and services it offers. TravelPerk offers a travel management solution that focuses on corporate group travel. Their solution includes expense management software, VAT recovery, consolidated invoices, and much more. The reporting capability also includes spending optimization instead of just number tracking.

Do you want to see how travel management software can make it easy for you to find cost-effective solutions and book trips for large groups of people without having to collect invoices? 

Request a demo and experience business travel packed into an all-in-one travel platform with TravelPerk.