Corporate Travel Software Solutions for Global Teams

As a company expands its operations across borders, its travel management needs become exponentially more complex. The simple, domestic-focused travel program that worked for a single-country operation is no longer sufficient. Managing a global team requires a travel software solution that is designed from the ground up to handle the intricacies of international travel, including multi-currency expense management, diverse travel inventories, complex visa requirements, and a robust, 24/7 global support model.

Choosing a platform that is not equipped for this global complexity can lead to major inefficiencies, compliance risks, and a poor experience for your international employees. This guide will outline the key capabilities that a corporate travel software must have to be considered a true solution for a modern, global team.

The Challenge of Global Travel Management

Managing a distributed, international team introduces several new layers of complexity:

Multi-Currency and Tax Complexity: You will have employees incurring expenses in dozens of different currencies. Your system must be able to handle these conversions accurately and also manage the different tax rules (like VAT reclamation in Europe) for each country.
Diverse Travel Inventory: The preferred airline in the US is not the preferred airline in Asia. Your booking tool must have a deep, global inventory that includes regional low-cost carriers, international rail options, and a wide variety of hotel properties in all your key markets.
Global Policy and Compliance: You will likely need different travel policies for different regions. A hotel budget that is reasonable in Southeast Asia is not realistic in Western Europe. Your platform must be able to support these localized, tiered policies.
24/7 Global Support: Your travelers are in every time zone. When a traveler in Singapore has a flight cancellation at 3 AM local time, they cannot wait for your US-based support team to come online. They need immediate, expert assistance.
Duty of Care on a Global Scale: Your responsibility to keep your travelers safe is now a global one. Your travel risk management program must have a global reach.

Essential Features of a Global Travel Software Solution

When evaluating a platform for your global team, look for these critical features.

1. Robust Multi-Currency Expense Management

This is a non-negotiable financial feature.

What to Look For: The platform must be able to seamlessly handle expenses submitted in any currency. It should automatically convert the expense to your company's home currency for reporting purposes, using an updated, reliable exchange rate. The system should also be able to support the complexities of VAT (Value Added Tax) reclaim, helping you to identify and recover taxes paid in eligible countries.
Why it Matters: Manual currency conversion is a major headache for finance teams and is prone to error. A system that automates this ensures accurate financial reporting and maximizes your potential tax savings from international travel.

2. Comprehensive Global Travel Inventory

Your team needs access to the best and most relevant travel options, no matter where they are.

What to Look For: The platform should aggregate content from multiple sources to provide a truly global inventory. This includes:
- GDS (Global Distribution Systems): The traditional source for major airline and hotel content.
- NDC (New Distribution Capability): Direct connections to airlines to access their best fares and ancillary products. A strong NDC strategy is a must.
- Regional and Local Content: Integration with local travel suppliers, such as European high-speed rail networks or regional low-cost carriers in Asia.
Why it Matters: A lack of local, relevant content is a major reason why international employees will book "off-channel." Providing a comprehensive inventory within the official tool is key to driving global adoption.

3. Flexible, Multi-Entity Policy and Approval Engine

A global company is often made up of multiple legal entities in different countries. Your travel platform must be able to accommodate this structure.

What to Look For: An enterprise-grade policy engine that allows you to:
- Create Multiple Policies: You should be able to create a different travel policy for your US entity, your UK entity, and your Singapore entity, each with its own currency and spending rules.
- Localize Approvers: Approval workflows should be configurable based on the traveler's home entity or department, ensuring that requests are routed to the correct local manager.
Why it Matters: This flexibility is essential for creating a program that is both globally consistent in its principles and locally relevant in its specifics.

4. A "Follow-the-Sun," 24/7 Global Support Model

This is a critical component of your Duty of Care and the traveler experience.

What to Look For: The provider should have a global support team of experienced travel agents who operate on a 24/7, "follow-the-sun" model. This means that at any time of day, a traveler can reach an agent who is working during their normal business hours.
Why it Matters: A traveler in Japan should not have to call a support center in the US in the middle of the night. Global support ensures that your employees can get expert help in their own time zone, which is crucial for handling travel disruptions and emergencies effectively.

5. Integrated Global Risk Management

The platform must provide the tools to protect your global team.

What to Look For:
- A Live Traveler Map: A global view of all traveler locations in real time.
- Localized Risk Alerts: The system should send alerts that are relevant to the traveler's specific location, in the local language where appropriate.
- A Global Assistance Partner: The platform should be backed by a partnership with a major medical and security assistance provider that has on-the-ground resources all over the world.

The Best Solutions for Global Teams

Not all travel software is created equal when it comes to global capabilities.

Legacy Enterprise TMCs (e.g., SAP Concur, Amex GBT): These platforms were built for global complexity and often have very deep features for managing multiple entities and currencies. However, their technology is often outdated, and their user experience can be poor, leading to low adoption among a global, tech-savvy workforce.
Modern, Tech-First Platforms (e.g., Routespring, Navan, TravelPerk): The best modern platforms have been built on a global, cloud-native architecture from day one.
- Routespring has a particularly strong offering for global teams, combining a flexible, multi-entity policy engine and robust multi-currency expense management with a user-friendly interface that drives high adoption across different regions. Its focus on a unified, all-in-one platform simplifies the T&E process for a global workforce.
- TravelPerk, being a European-based company, has a very strong inventory and expertise in the European market.
- Navan also offers a strong global platform, though its value is often tied to the adoption of its corporate card product, which may not be the right fit for every global entity.

Conclusion

Managing business travel for a global team is a complex challenge that requires a sophisticated and specialized software solution. A platform that was designed primarily for domestic US travel will not be sufficient. When selecting a travel software partner, you must scrutinize their global capabilities, from their inventory and support model to their policy and expense features. By choosing a platform that is truly built for the complexities of global business, you can provide your international team with a seamless, supportive, and efficient experience, no matter where in the world their work takes them.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. How do we handle different currencies for expense reporting with a global team? Your travel and expense software must have robust multi-currency functionality. The employee should be able to submit an expense in the currency it was incurred in (e.g., EUR, JPY). The system should then automatically convert that amount to your company's home currency (e.g., USD) using an updated daily exchange rate. This ensures accuracy and saves your finance team a huge amount of manual work.

2. What is VAT and why is it important for our European travel? VAT (Value Added Tax) is a consumption tax in Europe. Foreign businesses can often reclaim the VAT they pay on expenses like hotels and conferences. A good global expense tool will help you identify VAT-eligible expenses and will often partner with a specialized VAT reclamation service to manage the complex refund process for you, which can result in significant savings.

3. Do we need a separate travel policy for each country we operate in? It's a best practice to have a global "master" policy that outlines your company's core principles, and then have country-specific addendums that account for local norms and cost differences. For example, your hotel price cap for London should be different from your cap for Bangkok. Your travel management platform should be able to support this kind of tiered, location-based policy structure.

4. How do we provide 24/7 support to a global team? You should partner with a TMC that has a global, "follow-the-sun" support model. This means they have support centers in multiple time zones around the world, ensuring that at any time of day, your call is being answered by a team that is wide awake and working their normal business hours.

5. How does a global travel software help with visa and entry requirements? A comprehensive platform will have a feature that provides travelers with information on the visa and entry requirements for their destination based on their nationality. It can alert them if a visa is needed and can often connect them with a preferred visa processing service to assist with the application.