UK travellers changing behaviour - GTMC

Air and hotels bookings in steep decline

Business travellers in the UK are changing their behaviour, a new survey published today (August 5) claimed.

The study by the UK Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) said traditional ways of travel and accommodation are in "steep and steady decline."

These include air travel, hotel stays and car hire.

The Guild's Quarterly Transactional Survey said the business related air travel has been falling since the third quarter of 2008.

But it said that the downward trend was now hitting all segments of air travel, including low cost carriers (LCCs).

In the second quarter of 2009, air travel was 11% down compared with the same three months in 2008.

The survey said that car hire which it said had been in an "almost constant downward spin since the third quarter or 2008" dropped a further 17% in the quarter.

There had now been a 13% fall in bookings over the past 12 months.

The Guild said the hotel sector which had "held steady" over the year "performed particularly poorly in the quarter - down 13% against the corresponding quarter of 2008."

It added that the decline in hotel bookings was the "single largest drop for the sector in over two years and highlights business travellers becoming ever more cost conscious."

Only rail bookings showed in increase, the Guild said. These were up year on year by 13% and up 7% compared with the same quarter in 2008.

The GTMC said: "The rail figures show that business travellers are increasingly changing their booking and travel patterns and are incorporating train travel into the travel itineraries, possibly at the expense of hotels, airlines and car hire."

The figures are based on the number of invoiced transactions by all its agency members and on the BSPs settled during the three months by the UK's 30 biggest travel management companies.

Philip Carlisle, the Guild's ceo, said: "This latest Quarterly Transaction Survey shows clearly that the behaviour patterns of business travellers are changing and those changes are impacting every segment of the sector.

"I think these statistics show that the face of business travel may be very different when we come out of the recession."

www.gtmc.org