Open booking

An approach where employees book anywhere, with the data then consolidated into one system for tracking. It gives travellers more freedom over where they book — a preferred airline site, a hotel's own page, or a personal favourite tool — while still feeding cost and itinerary data back into the company's records. This differs from strict managed travel, which channels all bookings through a single designated platform.

The idea behind open booking is that employees sometimes find better deals or more convenient options outside the corporate channel, and forcing them into one tool can frustrate travellers. Instead of restricting where bookings are made, the company focuses on capturing the data afterwards — for example, through confirmation emails forwarded to a dedicated inbox, card transaction feeds or integrations with supplier systems. The approach became more popular as consumer travel sites grew and many travellers got used to booking their own trips in a few taps.

Open booking has clear trade-offs. Data capture is rarely complete, policy checks happen after the money has been spent, negotiated rates may not apply, and the company has less leverage with suppliers. It can also complicate duty of care, since itineraries only become visible once the data has been consolidated. For this reason, many companies treat open booking as a complement to managed travel rather than a replacement for it. Some companies also find that the effort needed to consolidate open booking data eventually outweighs the flexibility it gives employees.

Tumodo addresses the reasons employees look for open booking in the first place. The platform shows prices direct from suppliers — the same as on airline and hotel websites — lets travellers choose flights, hotels and transfers themselves, and allows them to add personal loyalty numbers to earn miles and points on business trips. Employees get the freedom of choice they want, while the company keeps policy checks before booking, complete data and automatic reporting. In practice, this removes most of the reasons to book outside the corporate channel.