How self-service booking can empower business travelers

Written by Josefine Bovbjerg | Aug 15, 2025 9:24:45 AM

Self-service booking is revolutionizing the way businesses manage corporate travel by empowering employees to book their own trips—flights, hotels, and transportation—directly through an easy-to-use online platform. This shift not only enhances convenience for travelers but also reduces the workload for travel managers, ensuring compliance while increasing efficiency. With more business travelers preferring self-service systems, the demand for flexible, on-the-go booking solutions is growing, making it clear that self-service booking is here to stay in the modern corporate world.

What is self-service booking?

Self-service booking for business travel means giving employees the ability to book their own flights, hotels, and transportation online, without needing to go through a travel manager or agent. Using a simple online platform or app, employees can choose the travel options that work best for them, all while staying within company guidelines. It’s quick, easy, and gives travelers more control, while also reducing the workload for managers. In short, it’s a flexible, convenient way to handle business travel.

Why is the demand for Self-Service Booking in corporate travel increasing?

Today’s business travelers are more tech-savvy than ever, expecting digital solutions that match their everyday experiences. Legacy systems are struggling to keep up in a fast-evolving industry, with 78% of U.S. business travelers now preferring self-service booking platforms (GBTA). As a result, companies are moving away from outdated, manual processes and adopting streamlined tools that empower employees to book directly—while still ensuring oversight and compliance.

Embracing self-service isn’t just about convenience. It’s how modern, tech-forward teams move faster, ensure compliance, and enjoy a smoother travel experience—all without the hassle of legacy systems and long approval processes.

The market is shifting

The travel landscape is transforming as more companies empower their teams to book their own business trips. This shift not only gives employees greater control, but also raises the bar for digital experiences. Today’s business travelers—especially those familiar with intuitive, consumer-grade platforms—now expect the same seamlessness when managing work trips.

In response, organizations are increasingly adopting mobile-based travel solutions; in fact, the global travel app market reached $629 billion in revenue in 2024, up 13% from the year before.

This preference for self-service aligns with the broader shift toward mobile-first strategies in the travel sector. For instance, travel app downloads surged by 34% between 2019 and 2023 (data.ai), and mobile devices now account for 70.5% of global online travel traffic in 2024 (Statista). Furthermore, mobile bookings have increased to 37% of all travel sales, with projections indicating that this share will rise to 44% by 2029 (Euromonitor International).

The rise in mobile usage is not just about convenience; it also reflects the demand for integrated solutions that enable travelers to manage their trips effortlessly. The mobile travel booking market is expected to grow significantly, from $228.4 billion in 2024 to more than $526.4 billion by 2032 (Credence Research). These trends highlight how companies must prioritize mobile solutions to meet the evolving needs of modern business travelers.

Travelers prefer on-the-go solutions

Business travelers frequently use mobile platforms for tasks like flight check-ins, boarding passes, and hotel bookings. This shift toward mobile-first solutions creates demand for tools that integrate seamlessly into their busy lives, making self-service options more appealing than ever.

Flexibility matters more than ever

Post-pandemic, one key lesson for corporate travel is clear: flexibility is everything. Meetings change, opportunities arise, and businesses need tools that can adapt quickly.

Self-service booking platforms excel in this area, allowing travelers to make real-time updates to their itineraries, like rebooking flights, adjusting hotel stays, or canceling trips — all without hassle. Mobile-friendly interfaces and smart policies enhance the experience by tailoring options for specific trip types or departmental needs, ensuring a more agile, adaptable approach to travel management.

Self-service booking best practices

Integrated policies to keep up compliance

Choose a platform that integrates seamlessly with pre-set travel policies to avoid overspending or out-of-policy bookings.

Find an app-enabled booking platform

Choose a platform that provides an app that is easy to use and has all the features you need, so travelers can make changes, get support, and keep an overview of itineraries easily, on-the-go.

Goodwings: A modern solution for self-service booking

Intuitive and user friendly platform
Goodwings is a great example of a platform that supports self-service booking. It makes it easy for employees to book, change, and cancel trips - all within an intuitive, easy-to-use app. Travelers can also set up profiles to indicate their preferences in advance, making the booking experience even smoother.

Convenience and compliance
What sets Goodwings apart is how it blends convenience with compliance. The platform helps businesses integrate their travel policies into the booking flow, so employees are reminded if they’re about to book something outside the company’s guidelines. This feature makes it simple for travelers to navigate bookings without needing to check with a travel manager.

Plus, with useful tools like check-in reminders and travel itineraries all available in the app, Goodwings supports a seamless, on-the-go experience.

For companies looking to provide employees with the flexibility to manage their own travel, while still staying aligned with company policies, Goodwings offers a modern, efficient solution that makes self-service booking easy and hassle-free.

The advantages of Self-Booking Tools

Self-service booking tools offer real benefits for both employees and finance/operations teams. Modern travel management systems like Goodwings offer easy-to-use, on-the-go solutions meant to streamline the travel experience from booking to takeoff. Self-service features are not just a win for business travelers but can also create smoother workflows and less admin and bottlenecks for finance, travel managers, HR and operations.

For business travelers:

Faster bookings: Arrange trips in minutes, not hours, with modern systems that are designed to give you a convenient, intuitive and speedy booking experience.
Enhanced flexibility: Get a full overview of your itinerary and travel information in one place, and make changes easily, on-the-go.
Clear policy guidance: With the advantage of more detailed information, modern platforms highlight in-policy options and flag out-of-policy bookings for easy decision-making.
Personalized travel choices: Self-service booking tools often allow employees to customize their travel preferences—whether it’s selecting preferred airlines, seating options, or hotel types—creating a more personalized experience. Travelers no longer have to settle for generic or unaligned options that may not meet their specific needs.

For finance and travel managers

Fewer rogue bookings:
A more accessible booking tool is a more used booking tool. Direct access to a user friendly app that mimics the features of a leisure travel booking platform will cut down on out-of-platform bookings, and keep you in the loop with all booked business travel.
Enhanced Duty of Care
With all travel details centralized in one place, employers can easily track where their employees are at any given moment. This makes it easier to provide support in case of emergencies or travel disruptions, strengthening the company's duty of care.
Higher adoption and better data:
Making your employees book travel in a system that requires weeks of training to understand will make them fall out of love with travel booking altogether. When booking platforms are intuitive, accessible, flexible and user-friendly, more employees are willing to use them, ensuring higher adoption rates across the organization. As a result, every booking and change is automatically tracked, providing finance and operations teams with richer, real-time travel data.
Less admin: Giving employees the tools to change trips or book their own travel means less panicked calls from employees stuck in airports, less time handling individual bookings, approvals, and changes, and more time to focus on higher-value tasks like duty of care and employee safety.

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