What is a corporate travel tracker?

Managing travel for work in the U.S. has become more complicated than ever thanks to the simultaneous challenges of hybrid working arrangements, global factors and rising costs.

To balance these considerations alongside compliance with internal and U.S. workplace safety requirements, companies need real-time insight into employee travel activity, which is where corporate travel trackers come in.

Whether your U.S.-based team is traveling cross-country to a conference or individuals heading overseas to client meetings, knowing where they are is central to providing a sufficient duty of care.

In this article, Nick Roberts will break down what a corporate travel tracker is, how they work and why they are essential for any company with employees on the move. We’ll also show why TravelPerk’s travel tracking features make it easy to scale travel management and keep your team supported wherever they are in the world.

What is business travel tracking?

Understanding corporate travel trackers

A corporate travel tracker is a tool for companies to monitor employees during work-based travel to ensure they are safe and feel supported.

Travel trackers combine real-time data, location tracking, itineraries and risk alerts into a central location to allow for careful monitoring to streamline support and uphold duty of care. They can also integrate with other travel management systems to simplify processes like spend tracking to improve the overall experience for both travel managers and travelers.

Travel tracking tools support a range of business goals, including:

Expenses

Travel content centralization

Emergency and incident response

Who benefits from travel tracking tools?

Travel trackers should be used by companies of all sizes across the U.S. that have employees embarking on frequent domestic or international travel, as they can simplify and strengthen the approach to travel management.

These examples show how different departments could benefit:

Operations managers

For operations managers, travel trackers help ensure travel plans are flexible enough to align with employee needs and can be quickly adjusted to address challenges when disruptions occur.

For instance, if an employee traveling from LAX to JFK is rerouted due to airline delays, operations managers can track the itinerary and make alternative arrangements in real-time.

HR teams

HR teams rely on travel tracking tools to monitor and maintain duty of care as it can ensure that compliance with safety and labor laws is constantly monitored whether traveling locally, across state lines, or internationally.

If there is an incident, a tool like TravelPerk can trigger alerts that allow HR to respond immediately with support or instructions.

Finance teams

With centralized travel data, finance teams gain full visibility into employee travel expenses. This helps to manage costs like per diem meal expenses and automating approvals. It also provides accurate reports to support future travel budgets.

Leadership

Clear reporting provides a big-picture view of team mobility and spending for business leaders. With this information, trends can be spotted that could inform travel coordination and processes to support more efficient, strategic, and cost-effective travel planning.

How travel trackers simplify business travel

A circular diagram showing core functions, data sources, and output benefits of a system, with icons like hotels, airlines, and booking platforms.

Corporate travel trackers streamline work trips in the U.S. and abroad by aggregating data from multiple sources, including airlines and booking platforms, to create a comprehensive, real-time overview of your business travel plans.

Having this accessible in a central dashboard means quick access to key information and total visibility, including changes to bookings, possible delays, and cancellations. This means everyone involved always has access to the most up-to-date information.

Once the trip is complete, the tracker’s comprehensive records can be used to quickly generate detailed, custom reports and compliance reviews, making it easy to learn from the trip and optimize future approaches to travel planning.

Travel tracker benefits

Infographic with icons: safety, visibility, integrations, reporting, efficiency; all surrounding a central travel-related symbol on a pink background.

Real-time safety alerts

Immediate awareness of unexpected challenges like storms and other severe weather conditions is essential to keep your travel plans on course.

Having potential issues flagged in real time within the tracker means the entire team can be fully informed, and any support travelers need can be swiftly and responsibly provided to manage all kinds of travel risk.

Visibility

Travel tracking creates comprehensive oversight of all current and future travel plans. This means HR and operations teams can optimize travel plans and better allocate resources to keep things running smoothly and efficiently, while also meeting budget requirements.

Streamline reporting

With travel data centralized, expense tracking and report generation become much faster through consolidation and automation, saving resources on manual processes and helping to identify ways to make future journeys more efficient.

Boost efficiency and compliance

Keeping your team aligned with internal company travel policies and federal regulations like DOT or OSHA is easier with built-in compliance monitoring.

Once your travel policies are built into the plan, your travel tracker can automate approvals and flag when individuals may be operating outside the agreed guidelines, helping to address deviations in real time.

Seamless integration

A key benefit of trackers is their ability to work with existing travel management platforms (TMPs), automatically syncing itineraries, booking information, expenses, and safety information.

These integrations eliminate the need for manual tracking and increase visibility by sharing data across relevant booking, reporting, and safety systems. This improves visibility and simplifies processes for all stakeholders.

Inside TravelPerk’s Corporate Travel Tracker

A travel dashboard showing a world map with user avatars and flight paths, indicating active trips across various countries.

TravelPerk’s Corporate Travel Tracker offers complete visibility and control over your team’s business travel, with real-time updates and a centralized dashboard. This means you can view a live map of where employees are across the U.S. or globally, itineraries can be sorted and filtered, issues are automatically flagged and messaging and reporting can both be done from a single, central dashboard.

Because it’s all housed in one unified platform, there’s no need for third-party plugins or manual syncing. You get up-to-date data, fewer errors, and a smoother user experience from booking to post-trip reporting.

How TravelPerk’s tracker works

To understand how TravelPerk simplifies the business travel process, this example walks you through booking for your team to attend a conference in a major business hub, like Chicago or Atlanta.

Step 1: Booking, all in one place

With an integrated corporate travel booking system, flights, hotels, car rentals and transfers are all booked via the same platform. As soon as the bookings are confirmed, all details automatically sync to the travel tracker.

Step 2: Monitor in real time

Travel managers can monitor the trip and ensure it matches the planned itinerary with a live map view, and identify any individual travelers who may need support.

Map showing a flight path from JFK in the USA to BCN in Europe, with a plane icon in the middle over the Atlantic Ocean.

Step 3: Instant alerts when plans change

Strikes and delays are as inevitable as they are unpredictable. To make sure the trip stays on track, TravelPerk sends proactive alerts to both the traveler and the travel manager, allowing for a quick pivot when needed.

Smartphone displaying flight details from Amsterdam to New York, with a woman in a blue jacket smiling in the background.

Automated post-trip reports

Once everyone is home, you can review the trip by generating custom reports based on key factors like cost breakdowns, travel routes and even carbon emissions data. With the rapid creation of reports, every aspect can be assessed to improve experiences and efficiencies in the future.

Why U.S. businesses choose TravelPerk over manual tools

The advantages of TravelPerk’s all-in-one travel tracker are about more than just convenience and ease of use:

Keep your team safe with real-time alerts

Stay compliant with company policies and U.S. travel regulations

Manage costs with expense tracking and route planning

Reduce manual workloads with automation and integrations

Support sustainability through carbon offsetting.

Explore our “Corporate travel safety” guide, and then learn more about how TravelPerk's corporate travel tracker helps your team travel smarter, safer, and more sustainably.

What is a corporate travel tracker and why does your business need one?