Corporate TMCs Face Growing Traveler Support and Reporting Demands
The Global Business Travel Association's 2025 Corporate Travel Benchmarking Report found that corporate travel management company account managers now support an average of 47% more active travelers than in 2020, driven by the resurgence of business travel and expanded TMC service mandates that include expense management, policy compliance monitoring, and traveler wellbeing support. The growth in scope has not been matched by proportional account team expansion.
Deloitte's 2026 Global Travel Management Survey found that corporate clients rank data accuracy and reporting timeliness as the top two factors in TMC contract renewal decisions, ahead of price and traveler satisfaction. TMCs that deliver consistent, accurate reporting retain accounts at significantly higher rates — making reporting quality a direct revenue driver.
Traveler Booking Coordination Support
Corporate travelers frequently require booking assistance beyond the self-service online booking tool — complex international itineraries, last-minute changes, group travel coordination, and policy exception requests. These requests generate a high volume of communication that account managers must triage while managing client reporting and account administration.
A virtual assistant manages the traveler support inbox, handling standard booking modification requests, itinerary questions, and document retrieval — sending updated itineraries, hotel confirmations, and car rental vouchers from the travel management platform (Concur, Egencia, or Cytric) on demand. Non-standard requests that require supplier negotiation or policy override approval are escalated to the account manager with a complete context summary.
GBTA benchmarking data found that TMCs with tiered traveler support — where VAs handle standard requests and account managers handle exceptions — resolved traveler inquiries 52% faster than those routing all requests directly to account managers.
Expense Report Collection and Policy Compliance Tracking
Expense management is a major pain point in corporate travel programs. Travelers submit expense reports late, omit receipts, and inadvertently violate policy limits. TMCs with expense audit responsibilities must track submission compliance, identify policy violations, and compile data for client reporting.
A VA manages the expense collection workflow: sending submission reminders to travelers approaching report deadlines, reviewing submitted reports against policy parameters in the expense platform, flagging violations and missing documentation for the account manager's review, and logging compliance data in the client reporting database. Deloitte's survey found that companies with structured expense submission reminders reduced late reporting rates by 38% and improved policy compliance rates by 29%.
For clients using integrated expense platforms like SAP Concur or Navan, VAs can generate pre-formatted compliance summary reports directly from the platform, reducing the time account managers spend on data compilation before client review meetings.
Client Reporting Preparation and Delivery
Monthly and quarterly client reporting is one of the most time-consuming functions in corporate TMC account management. Reports typically include booking volume and spend analysis, policy compliance rates, preferred supplier utilization, savings captured versus benchmark, and traveler satisfaction summaries.
A VA manages the reporting preparation workflow: pulling data from the travel management platform and expense system, populating the client-specific report template, checking data accuracy against the prior period, and delivering a draft to the account manager for review and commentary. GBTA data found that account managers using dedicated reporting support completed client report delivery an average of 4.2 days earlier in the reporting cycle than those preparing reports independently.
Corporate travel management companies looking to reduce account manager administrative burden and improve client reporting delivery can explore virtual assistant staffing options at Stealth Agents.
Sources
- Global Business Travel Association. Corporate Travel Benchmarking Report 2025.
- Deloitte. Global Travel Management Survey 2026.
- U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics 2025.