American Express Business Travel has created an interactive scorecard for companies to measure the effectiveness of their travel programs and benchmark them against those of other companies. At the site, visitors are asked a series of questions related to travel, including demand management strategies, compliance practices, technology implementation, and data integration. As they answer the questions, they are provided advice and tips from American Express consultants, strategic program managers, and business travel executives. They’re also able to see how they compare to other companies who answered the same questions.

Coinciding with the rollout, AmEx released a new research report, “Managing Travel in the New Normal,” with feedback from 169 respondents across more than 30 industries who are directly involved in managing corporate travel policies and budgets.

Among the findings, many of which are evidence of companies tightening up on their business and meetings travel (and travelers):

-Fewer than 30 percent of respondents said their companies have a formalized and enforced meetings policy. An additional 11 percent have a meetings policy but do not enforce it, and more than one-quarter of responding companies had no meetings policy implemented. The largest percentage of survey respondents (36 percent) indicated that meeting planning processes were subject to the corporate travel policy, rather than a specific meetings policy.

-37 percent said their companies provide technology and mobile services to travelers to be more efficient when they’re on the road

-74 percent said their companies use or plan to use audio-conferencing as an alternative to travel

-When employees don’t follow travel policy, 37 percent of companies refuse to reimburse those charges.

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