What is Academic Travel?
Academic travel takes place in many forms. Researchers need to carry out crucial scientific and medical research, often collaborating with the international community. Many subject experts attend global conferences as key speakers, networking with attendees and opening up new research channels. Lecturers also often travel to give talks to students, or they travel as part of the curriculum to provide vital real-life experience of the subject being studied.
What are Academic Fares?
Our fares save provide travel savings, whether it be as an upfront discount, or receiving free-of-charge benefits.
Key benefits include:
- Discounts vs published fares
- Extended holding periods
- Fewer fare restrictions, such as Saturday night stay
- Low or no change or cancellation fees
- Fully refundable fares
- Extra luggage allowance
Why Key Travel?
We're the experts! Key Travel is the world’s largest international travel management company specialising in Academic, Humanitarian and Faith-based travel. Having already launched the first ever Missionary fares in the 1980's, we did the same for the Academic sector in 2018 when we launched the first ever specialist academic air fares.
Our in-house consultants are specialists in academic travel, and understand the unique needs of the sector.
- Operations in 9 countries across UK, North America, Europe and Africa
- 24/7 support (out of hours at no extra cost)
- Most successful booking tool adopted by the not-for-profit sector
- Adherence to Service Level Agreements and Key Performance Indicators
- In-depth and fully accessible reporting
- Experts in Study Trips
- Student travel portal, adding value for your students by giving them access to exclusive, flexible travel solutions.
- We are very familiar with the Fly America Act and its rules, including Open Skies and codeshare agreements. Our Consultants will consider these restrictions when planning itineraries, ensuring compliance where relevant.
We offer a single point of travel administration, reporting, monitoring and cost control, taking away the headache of travel management, so that you can dedicate more of your resources to making a difference and we deliver this better than any other travel management company.
Check out how we simplify travel through our technology and service
Sustainable Travel?
Universities are critical to tackling the climate emergency. This is through their teaching and research, and by delivering on their own commitments to reduce emissions.
Staff and student travel is often the second biggest source of carbon emissions after purchased goods and services. This is why we provide our customers with a multi-pronged programme to help eliminate non-essential travel and mitigate the environmental impact of purposeful travel.
Learn more about travel sustainability
Does My Organisation Really Need A TMC?
Academic travel can often be the largest operating expense after payroll, so it’s no surprise that every aspect of travel is under the spotlight with budgets and research grant restrictions, from service fees to levels of service.
TMCs provide huge value to Academic organisations because they:
- Provide and effective and efficient way to access travel content globally from a multitude of travel providers from a single source
- Provide guidance on macro developments around the world impacting travel
- Aggregate volumes across customers and this scale translates into lower fares from suppliers
- Ensure travellers are supported in in trip planning and booking and in the event of disruption or emergencies
- Enable travel policy compliance and effective cost and risk control through embedding of policy rules in booking systems and comprehensive reporting
- Provide travel management expertise e.g. in travel risk management and travel sustainability
- Provide cost efficient access to best practices in travel management
- Provide detailed cost, service, quality and carbon reporting
- Enable effective return on investment measurement of travel activity
In summary, if you don't have a TMC, your organisation loses the benefit of significant value adding expertise and of a single point of travel administration, reporting, monitoring and cost/risk control.