My booth staffers often use every dime of their allotted travel per diems, usually on high-priced meals or unnecessary extras. Now that trade shows are resuming and my budget is under scrutiny, how can I curtail needless spending and put a bit more moola back in my program's coffers?

Staff travel amounts to nearly 15 percent of an exhibiting budget, according to EXHIBITOR Magazine's 2019 Economic Outlook Survey (the last year this data was collected). So while it might sound trivial to try to cut back on per diems, it can absolutely add up over time. And a few extra thousand dollars might be all you need to ramp up your pre-show marketing efforts, purchase that sponsorship you've had your eye on, or simply add a little budgetary wiggle room to accommodate unexpected expenses on the show floor.

Thankfully, you're already on the right track, as providing a daily spending allotment for each staff member is a straightforward and effective way of establishing a cap on employee spending. This way, your staffers can't go over budget because they have no access to additional funds. However, if the choice is to spend it or lose it, you can bet people are going to fritter away every last cent available to them. For instance, if staffers have $50 of their per diems left at the end of the day, they're surely going to buy themselves a nice steak and some wine rather than letting the company keep the leftover cash.

So if you want to curtail spending without decreasing per diems across the board, consider implementing a program where your employees earn a sort of bonus for the unspent portion of their daily allotments. For example, let's say an employee is given $75 to spend every day of a six-day show. At the show's end, the employee only spent $300, leaving a remainder of $150. If you split that money with the employee, he or she has $75 to spend at will, and you have $75 in your program's bank account.

Another option is to lower the per diem considerably and offer an evening meal for the entire staff. This allows you to select the venue and even put a cap on which entrees may be ordered (e.g., nothing over $25). You could also limit alcoholic beverages to one per employee per meal to further cut costs.

Certainly these two simple steps might seem negligible, and they require minimal effort on your part. But over time, they'll no doubt add a bit more green to your ledgers.