A majority of business travellers (56%) go outside their companies travel policy during the year, a new Business Travel Indicator survey from Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) reveals.
While many of these travellers (31%) ignore the policy only between one and four times a year, many others persistently go out side of it.
The White Paper said 18% ignored travel policy five to ten times a year, 3% 11-20 times, 1% 21-30 times and 2% more than 30 times.
44% told CWT that they "never" go outside of policy.
There were similar findings on hotels bookings where CWT said maximising spend through a managed programme will bring savings.
Only 37% of business travellers used their company's travel management company (TMC) to book a room. 44% went direct to the hotel while 17% used a leisure website for their reservation.
The survey questioned 2,100 travellers and 650 travel managers in 12 countries, among them France, Italy, Germany, Spain and the UK in Europe.
It found a basic different approach to the company travel policy by the travellers and the travel manager.
More than half the travellers (56%) said they saw the policy as a "guideline" while 64% of managers, who see compliance as a major way to drive savings, said it was mandatory.
While 59% of travellers said they were "very familiar" with the company policy, 40% said they were "somewhat familiar" (20%), "not familiar" (9%) or said their company did not have one (11%).
There was a further gap in what ramifications there were for going outside policy.
48% of business travellers said there was none but 82% of travel managers thought that their travellers did know problems were caused by non-compliance.
Travellers thought the best way to make them comply with a policy was through using an online booking tool through the TMC (76%).
But communications explaining the policy (68%), booking restrictions through the reservation system (67%) and penalties (55%) would also improve compliance.
* see BTE's recruitment site www.businesstraveljobs.com