Generic ROI

It’s easy to default to a generic ROI formula and look for a direct financial return on every pound or dollar spent. Recent studies show that, for SMBs and mid-sized companies, every dollar spent on business travel can generate an average of $12 in revenue, mainly from new customer acquisition. These numbers are compelling and reassuring but difficult to apply to an individual organization's travel profile. Although C-suite leaders overwhelmingly believe in-person meetings are essential for revenue and customer retention, the real value of travel goes much deeper and is difficult to quantify.

Beyond the Balance Sheet: Why is business travel more than pipelines and sales?

For many of us, business travel is more than just closing deals or generating leads. It’s about the energy and fresh perspective that comes from stepping out of daily routines, reconnecting with clients and colleagues, and sparking new ideas. Industry events and conferences, in particular, offer a unique environment for inspiration and relationship-building elements that are hard to quantify but crucial for long-term business growth.

Face-to-face time with clients and peers leads to richer conversations, deeper understanding, and creative thinking that rarely happens over video calls. These shared experiences build trust and community, laying the groundwork for future opportunities.

Creating and Capturing New Data to prove ROI of business travel!

One of the challenges in proving the ROI of travel is that so much of its value is intangible.

Traditional reporting can tell you where people went and how much they spent, but it often misses the “why” and “what came out of it.” That’s why, at Unlocked Data, we believe that sometimes you must create new data, not just report on what already exists.

Our pre-trip planner tool is designed with this in mind. By providing bookers and travelers with indicative total costs before a trip, we help organizations plan smarter and set clearer expectations. However, the real power comes when we start capturing additional data points: the purpose of each trip, anticipated outcomes, and post-trip reflections on what was achieved.

Imagine asking travelers before they go:

• What is the primary goal of this trip?
• Who do you plan to meet, and what do you hope to accomplish?
• What is the expected financial return of this trip (if any)?

And then, after the trip:

• Did you achieve your stated travel objectives
• Will you achieve your expected return on investment
• Rate the other positive outcomes of the travel (e.g. creativity, relationships, motivation)?

This approach turns travel data into a living feedback loop, helping businesses not only justify spend, but also learn and improve with every trip.

The Future of Measuring Travel ROI

As the industry evolves, the conversation around ROI is shifting from pure cost control to value creation. Companies are becoming more strategic, using technology to capture richer data and make smarter decisions about which trips to approve and how to measure their impact. The goal isn’t just to spend less- it’s to spend better, ensuring that every trip delivers meaningful value to the business and its people.

We want to know:

What are your personal expectations for business travel in the remainder of 2025? Are you anticipating more trips, longer trips, or a different style of travel?

How do you ensure your business trips are seen as valuable and purposeful? Does this change how you plan or report on your travel?

At Unlocked Data, we’re excited to help our clients lead the way. By combining traditional spend analytics with creative new data points, we can unlock a fuller picture of the true ROI of travel-one that includes not just financial returns, but also energy, relationships, inspiration, and long-term growth.

If you’re ready to rethink how you measure the value of business travel, let’s start a conversation. Sometimes, the most important data is the data you haven’t captured yet.

Why Is This KPI Important?

Many of our clients are seeing travel levels rebound-sometimes even exceeding pre-pandemic expectations. This is a positive sign for business growth and client engagement. With airfares softening in 2025 after a period of sharp increases, there’s now a clearer window to understand what’s truly driving changes in your travel spend.

Breaking down your travel data helps you isolate three key drivers:

• Price Increases: Are fares genuinely up, or are you just booking differently?
• Travel Patterns: Has your mix shifted towards business class or long-haul flights?
• Travel Levels: Are certain departments or teams travelling more than before?

By analysing these factors separately, you gain a clearer understanding of what’s driving your travel costs and where you have opportunities to improve efficiency or compliance.

Strengths of This KPI

• Strong Financial Undertones Looking at the impact of price, volume and mix is a typical financial measure for understanding variances. These KPIs take a financial approach to the complex travel data to frame spending increases against the backdrop of demand, fares & travel patterns.
• Identifies savings achieved - As prices & volumes are increasing it can be difficult to identify potential savings achieved by procurement teams. These metrics attempt to isolate these price increases to show savings. Clear benchmarking that showcases price performance against industry trends and averages highlights the strength of the current programme and opportunities for improvement.
• Business Changes - in volatile business landscapes where an organisation is changing is places of travel, or acquiring / disposing or moving into new geographies, these metrics help put these changes into the context of travel

Challenges of This KPI

• Complex Calculation - Untangling the mixture of routes, classes, volumes and benchmarks is an intensive task.
• Pricing - Price changes are driven by a variety of complex economic factors. Price increases above benchmarks can be negatively received, even though the nuances of the circumstances are explainable.
• Organisational Buy-In - Business Leaders can be quick to blame price increases for increase in travel spend, rather than grapple with internal demand and booking patterns.

Taking It to the Next Level

To make this KPI more actionable:

• Focus on Outliers - Use detailed internal and external benchmarking to identify outliers (significant change in mix, price or volumes)
• Focus on controllable outcomes- With a complex KPI suite it can be difficult to identify the 'so-what'. Be clear the two or three specific changes that leaders should consider to bring the spend under control.

Should You Use This KPI?

This is a good KPI for taking a deep-dive into the changes in your travel programme, rather than an everyday temperature check. Consider running on an semi-annual basis.

Rating: 4/5

Conclusion

In fast-moving business landscapes and complex travel programmes, putting travel spend into context of organisational changes lends credibility and needed nuance to travel reporting for senior leaders.

Why AI Matters in Corporate Travel

Corporate travel generates a significant amount of data from various sources, including expense tools, booking platforms, payment transactions, and supplier contracts. AI can help consolidate this fragmented information, making it possible to identify patterns, detect anomalies, and forecast trends. For instance, our tools can highlight potential savings opportunities, flag instances of non-compliance, or predict visa and tax risks associated with frequent international travel.

How We Use AI at Unlocked Data

1. Data Matching Across Channels Our AI-powered tools unify data from multiple sources, such as invoices and booking systems, ensuring accuracy and consistency. For example, we use AI to clean up supplier names while excluding sensitive traveler information like names or personal details.
2. Anomaly Detection Identifying irregularities, such as unauthorized bookings or duplicate expense claims, is essential for compliance and cost control. Our AI detects these issues early, enabling you to take proactive action.
3. Forecasting for Smarter Planning By analyzing historical trends, our forecasting models predict future travel demand and identify potential risks, such as visa or tax compliance issues. This analysis helps businesses allocate budgets effectively while avoiding disruptions.

Where Travel Managers Can Safely Explore AI

For those new to AI, reporting and reconciliation provide a low-risk space to explore its benefits without affecting critical operational tasks such as reservations or bookings. These areas are ideal starting points for automation and insights.

Expertise Meets Technology: Our Point of Difference

Unlocked Data stands out because we believe that technology should enhance human expertise rather than replace it. While many competitors prioritize automation, we combine AI-driven analysis with industry knowledge to provide insights that are practical, actionable, and tailored to your organization's specific needs.

Data Security: Our Commitment

We prioritize data security by keeping personal information separate from automated processes. Sensitive traveler information is not included in AI analysis, while supplier names and financial details are matched securely. Additionally:

• All data is encrypted at every stage of processing.
• We comply with global regulations, such as GDPR.
• We provide transparency, so you always know how your data is being used.

Conclusion

At Unlocked Data, we empower businesses with smarter travel insights by combining advanced AI capabilities with deep industry expertise, all while ensuring robust data security protocols. Whether you’re interested in reporting automation or forecasting tools, we’re here to guide you toward success as you unlock the full potential of your travel program.

Stay subscribed for more insights into how AI is shaping the future of corporate travel and how Unlocked Data can help you lead the way.

Kicking off with a Trip Optimisation KPI:

Why Is This KPI Important?

1. Cost & Carbon Reduction By analysing this data, businesses can identify opportunities to significantly reduce unnecessary travel, supporting sustainability goals and reducing costs.

2. Tax & Visa Risks Excessive travel to HQ may inadvertently trigger tax or visa compliance issues, especially for international employees. Monitoring this KPI helps mitigate these risks.

Strengths of This KPI

• Easy to Understand for Everyone - This KPI is straightforward: either someone traveled to HQ or they didn't. Its simplicity makes it easy for both travel experts and non-travel stakeholders like HR or finance teams to understand and use in decision-making. Clarity is crucial when working with cross-functional teams who may not have deep expertise in travel management.
• Simple Calculation - It's binary, yes or no, which makes it easy to track across large datasets without ambiguity.
• Good Savings Potential - This KPI often highlights areas where businesses can save money by reducing redundant trips.
• Clear Benchmarking - Another strength of this KPI is that it helps demonstrate what "good" looks like. For example, your organisation may have preferred airline and hotel suppliers servicing the HQ city or even deals with local restaurants. By tracking HQ travel, you can easily identify outliers who are not using approved suppliers or channels, ensuring compliance and maximising cost efficiencies.

Challenges of This KPI

• Grey Areas - Not all trips to HQ are created equal. Some may be for internal meetings, while others could be en route to another location. Without detailed trip reasons, the data can be unclear.
• Negative Perception - Labeling HQ travel as "bad" can overlook its benefits, such as career development, cultural immersion and learning opportunities.
• Organisational Buy-In - Setting targets for HQ travel reduction can be tricky, what is the "right" amount? Also, reductions might be influenced by external factors like organisational changes or one-off projects.

Taking It to the Next Level

To make this KPI more actionable:

• Focus on Outliers - Use HR hierarchy data (e.g., job roles and seniority levels) to identify individuals or teams whose HQ travel stands out from the norm.
• Incorporate Trip Reasons - Tracking trip purposes allows you to differentiate between necessary travel (e.g., leadership meetings) and potentially avoidable trips.

Should You Use This KPI?

At Unlocked Data, we recommend including one Trip Optimisation KPI in your core suite and this one is a strong contender. It's easy to understand, simple to calculate and often reveals cost-saving opportunities. While it has limitations, incorporating additional layers like trip reasons and HR data can make it even more insightful.

Rating: 4.5/5

Conclusion

Tracking the number of people traveling to HQ is a practical way for businesses to optimise their corporate travel programs. By effectively leveraging this KPI, organisations can reduce costs, minimise carbon footprints, and ensure compliance, all while maintaining a healthy balance between collaboration and efficiency.

Are we getting value for money?

A key area of interest for senior leadership within your organisation will be value for money. How cost effective is our current travel, how does it compare and what is the value of the current travel programme?

Our system provides detailed analytics on flight and hotel spending against industry benchmarks, using a RAG (Red, Amber, Green) rating system to highlight cost efficiencies and areas for improvement. This allows you to quickly assess the value for money and how cost-effective certain areas are and to share strategic insights for future expenditure.

Is my team doing the right thing?

Our dashboard helps you to share insights and quickly communicate how travel decisions are currently being made and to identify any potential areas for improvement.

Analysing a range of compliance metrics, our system will review your travel data across the team and provide an overview across the year offering a rating against the standard benchmark, and identify savings opportunities.

Do we travel too much?

Does the travel current program align with the strategic direction of the business? Stakeholders will want to ensure teams are travelling enough to remain effective, sales are optimised, and business is operating efficiently.

Our reporting tools can differentiate between billable and non-billable time, front office and back office, internal and external travel data and provide insights into the overall return on investment for your organisation.

Having this information to hand and assessing it allows you to communicate effectively with leadership and answer the questions of whether the current level of travel is efficient. This can help refine travel policies to maximise efficiency and profitability within the organisation.

How sustainable is it?

Sustainability is an increasing priority for many organisations. At Unlocked Data, we can provide you with the tools and information syou need to review how sustainable your travel currently is and make smarter, greener decisions moving forward. You can then use this data to communicate at a strategic level with senior management to bring sustainability to the forefront of the conversation.

By leveraging our reporting dashboard and advanced insights, you can communicate with stakeholders confidently, offering facts and figures alongside actionable insights that drive smarter travel decisions.

For more information on how our system can support your business objectives, get in touch and let’s book a quick demo!

What is ISO27001?

ISO27001 is a globally acknowledged certification that sets out the best practices for managing and securing sensitive information. It provides a systematic approach to risk management, ensuring that organisations identify, assess, and mitigate security threats effectively.

When working with our clients, we are often processing sensitive travel data including personal and financial information. Therefore, it was important to us that we were compliant with the international standards and ISO27001 certified.

In order to be certified, we were required to undergo rigorous assessment by independent auditors, validating our commitment to maintaining the highest standards of data security for you.

How Does This Benefit You?

1. Enhanced Data Security – Your sensitive information is protected by a robust security framework, minimising the risk of expensive data breaches.
2. Regulatory Compliance – ISO27001 aligns with legal and regulatory requirements, giving you peace of mind that your data is handled responsibly and in line with the guidelines.
3. Addressing weaknesses – Through being more risk aware, we can quickly be more risk aware and recognise when potential weaknesses exist in your data handling process – correcting them before they become problematic.
4. Greater Trust & Confidence – By achieving this accreditation, we demonstrate that we are committed to safeguarding your data and Unlocked Data take this really seriously.

Achieving ISO27001 is not just about gaining a certification—it reflects our ongoing commitment to continuously improving our service to our clients and ensuring your travel data is handled with care. We will continue to implement best practices and ensure that our clients' data always remains protected whilst it is used to produce reports that inform smarter, more efficient travel decisions.

By choosing to work with us, you can be confident that your information is in safe hands. If you’d like to learn more about how we can use your travel data to produce insights, reports and key information to make decisions, get in touch!