Engineering Company Managing Project Travel Across Africa

Background

A UAE-based engineering and infrastructure company supported long-term projects across East and West Africa. Engineers and project managers rotated regularly between project sites, often on fixed schedules tied to construction phases.

Travel arrangements were reliable but decentralized, limiting visibility at the project and group level.

The Requirement

The company wanted clearer coordination, consistent documentation, and better oversight of travel costs by project. Large cost savings were not expected, but control and visibility were.

What Utravel Delivered

Utravel streamlined travel bookings and created standard templates for rotation-based travel. Individual traveller profiles were created that included visa status, passport validity, and typical rotation schedules.

Monthly invoicing was also consolidated and aligned to project codes, allowing project managers to track travel costs more accurately against budgets.

During rollout, Nabil Abu Alrub, Director General, noted, “For project-driven organizations, visibility is critical. Once travel is mapped to projects, decision-making becomes more controlled.”

Results

Within six months, the number of individual travel invoices processed by finance reduced by nearly half, to approximately 45 percent. Project managers gained clearer oversight of rotation costs, and fewer follow-ups were required for routine travel. They also found that overall travel costs remained stable, with reduced administrative inefficiencies and improved predictability.

Client Impact

The company gained structured oversight without disrupting established project workflows. Travel planning became easier to manage at scale and more transparent across departments.