Optimize your business travel program with CTM’s online booking tool – Lightning

Is your team’s travel booking behavior aligned with your business travel program goals for savings, efficiency, and traveler safety?

If your business is looking to increase policy compliance, improve budget control, simplify supplier management, and strengthen duty of care, a smart online booking solution is essential.

Corporate Travel Management’s (CTM’s) Lightning is designed to do just that. Lightning integrates your travel policy, preferred suppliers, and user-specific compliance settings into one streamlined platform, eliminating manual workarounds and driving better outcomes across your business travel program.

Book smarter, faster, all in one place

Lightning gives your team access to flights, hotels, car rentals, and rail bookings through a single, user-friendly interface. With content sourced from GDS, low-cost carriers, and last-minute inventory, travelers can compare options side by side and book at the best available rates with no need to search across multiple sites.

The platform’s flexibility allows travel options to be customized, so your preferred suppliers and negotiated rates are prioritized in search results. This ensures that employees are guided toward choices that maximize value and policy alignment.

By centralizing bookings, Lightning supports efficient travel planning, increases visibility for managers, and strengthens supplier compliance to help you get the most from your travel spend.

Gain control and visibility over travel spend

Lightning empowers businesses to exercise greater control over the travel budget by offering real-time visibility and comprehensive reporting on air, hotel, and car rental (and rail) expenditure all in one place. Lightning’s configurable supplier preferencing tools encourage travel bookers to opt for the most cost-effective travel options based on factors such as traveler role type and purpose of travel to maximize budget control.

The platform’s ability to swiftly flag instances of out-of-policy bookings serves as a powerful tool to highlight and minimize missed savings opportunities, fostering a sense of accountability within your team. Policy compliance reporting provides visibility of reasons for policy breakage to help identify training needs and inform future enhancements to your business travel policy and supplier contracts. For example, Lightning’s booking reports may reveal patterns where travelers prioritize environmental sustainability features in their travel choices, or an airline’s on-time performance, or a hotel’s star rating or location to support traveler efficiency and safety.

Mitigate traveler risk

Duty of care and the health and wellbeing of travelers is a paramount focus for many businesses. Maintaining visibility of your employees’ whereabouts during business travel, understanding their travel patterns and preferences, and making informed supplier choices are critical to mitigating the risks associated with unexpected events, traveler burnout and policy non-compliance.

Lightning supports businesses to mitigate these risks. Lightning’s integrated approval workflows quickly identify out-of-policy bookings and bookings that meet specified risk thresholds, prompting the travel booker to seek approval before confirming the travel itinerary.

Lightning’s integrated itinerary tracking enables managers to locate and communicate with travelers when unexpected risks occur. And, Lightning’s real-time data capture provides actionable insights to address risk concerns and trends that may impact traveler wellbeing.

Control business travel policy adoption for decentralized workforces

Lightning offers real-time visibility and detailed reporting across air, hotel, car rental, and rail bookings. Configurable supplier preferencing tools help guide travel bookers to cost-effective choices based on traveler role and purpose of travel.

Out-of-policy bookings are flagged instantly, helping reduce missed savings opportunities and promoting accountability. Lightning’s policy compliance reporting also highlights common reasons for non-compliance, supporting ongoing policy refinement and targeted training.

For example, reports might reveal that travelers favor options based on sustainability features, on-time performance, or proximity to key locations, all valuable insights for adjusting travel policies and supplier negotiations.

Strengthen duty of care

Employee safety and well-being are central to an effective travel program. Lightning supports this through features that track itineraries, enforce risk-based approval workflows, and provide managers with real-time access to traveler location data in case of unexpected events.

With mobile functionality and integrated communication tools, your business can stay connected with travelers and respond quickly to changes or risks as they arise.

Enforce travel policy in decentralized workforces

In today’s hybrid and remote work environment, consistent policy adoption can be challenging. Lightning simplifies this by embedding policy controls directly into the booking workflow, no matter where your employees are based. And with CTM’s mobile app, travelers can manage bookings and receive updates on the go.

Ready to improve your travel program?

Whether your goal is cost savings, policy enforcement, risk mitigation, or traveler satisfaction, Lightning puts you in control. From role-based budgets and approval flows to dynamic content filtering and robust reporting, CTM’s Lightning empowers businesses to align their travel strategy with business goals.