Evaluating State Agency Use of Travel Agents

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State agency business needs may require staff to travel by air. These needs include core job responsibilities and continuing professional development. Whatever the circumstances, state agencies must follow travel rules set out by the Office of Financial Management (OFM). For air travel, OFM requires state agencies to use vendors contracted through the Department of Enterprise Services (DES).

We initiated this audit after routine data analysis performed by our data scientist identified a significant number of travel agent fees. Although spending on fees was modest compared to overall travel costs, the discovery raised questions about whether the state’s process was cost-effective. We launched this audit to better understand those costs.

Read a two-page summary of the report (PDF).

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Key results

This audit found that although using travel agents can result in higher costs than booking flights directly, state agency staff said they benefit from customer service and travel coordination. Agencies followed state rules and often relied on agents for complex arrangements or to avoid investing significant staff time into those tasks. State agencies mostly used DES-authorized air travel vendors as required. For the 13 months they did not, the lapse of a state contract with travel agents led to many bookings made with agents no longer under contract.

Today, staff said they were supported by adequate guidance and training, although they offered some suggestions that would help state travel managers make bookings that follow all state rules while still obtaining good prices.

Background

DES contracts with several vendors to provide or coordinate air travel services, including two contracted airlines and several travel agents. Travel agents act as intermediaries between travelers and the airline and provide a range of additional services. They typically charge a service fee in addition to the price of the tickets to cover their services.

Benefits beyond cost savings

State agencies bought about half their air travel through travel agents. Airfares booked through reviewed travel agents generally cost more than fares from contracted airlines. Notwithstanding this, cost is not the only way to evaluate the use of travel agents. State agencies cited good customer service and support for complex, often last-minute, travel as benefits of working with a travel agent.

Following rules, following guidance

State agencies paid 98% of fees to DES-contracted travel agents as required for most of the audit period, which examined bookings made between July 1, 2021–June 30, 2025. Agency staff said they found current guidance and training from DES and OFM sufficient for booking air travel. However, some guidance from DES was incomplete or conflicted with OFM guidance. To address this, DES has improved its internal coordination to give state agencies clear, cohesive and consistent information.

A lapsed contract led to noncompliance

However, changes DES made to its contract structure in 2023 led to a 13-month period during which 90% of fees went to noncontracted travel agents. Late notice to state agencies and slow onboarding by a larger state-contracted travel agency made it untenable for state travel managers to immediately shift their bookings. Most state agencies had to continue using their previous travel agents through 2024.

By early 2025, the state had established a new contract covering many of those vendors. While such an extensive reorganization of contracted vendors was a one-off event that is unlikely to recur, this experience underscores the importance of clear communication.

Recommendations

Overall, we found DES is managing the travel program effectively today, with no significant, systemic issues with how state agencies use travel agents for air travel. DES has made improvements to ensure agencies have access to clear and consistent information, and we appreciate the department’s efforts. We therefore made no recommendations to DES or OFM, but encourage them to continued work to provide agencies with clear, consistent, accessible travel information.