Recession has "transformed" industry - Crum

Companies "much more professional"

The recession has transformed the marketplace for business travel, Richard Crum, president and ceo of AirPlus International, said.

Mr Crum, who is also president of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), said the economic crisis had made companies "much more professional about their travel management, such as more comprehensive use of travel policies".

Writing in the forward to the 5^th AirPlus International Travel Management Study 2009, released this week in Europe, Mr Crum said the big spenders were cutting back more than more than medium or lower spenders.

But threes global companies were also using "more professional tools and processes, including policy, negotiated agreements and analytical tools to help them achieve exactly that."

AirPlus said there was a possibility that global companies had carried out "more stringent" reviews of their travel spend and had concluded that a number of trips were "unjustifiable and can be eliminated."

The study found which questioned 1,500 travel buyers in 15 countries, found that 44% felt the recession had had a negative effect on their business.  

For the first time since the surveys started in 2005, AirPlus said there were more buyers thinking that travel would decline (35%)  than who thought it would increase (23%).

But the largest number, 40% believed there would be no change.

Only 25% of buyers told AirPlus they expected to spend more against 58% in 2008 while the number who expect to spend less rose form 23% in2008 to 33% this year.

One effect of the recession, AirPlus noted, was that negotiated deals were back with 74% of the buyers saying they had agreements with hotels, 56% with airlines and 57% with car rental companies.

All were increases on the numbers for 2008.

AirPlus said that hotels were showing "renewed interest" in signing deals when during peak demand they had limited the number of "lower yielding" bookings from business travellers.

The buyers said the main consequences of the recession were less travel, direct cost savings, tightening of travel policies, shorter trips and a complete adjustment of all travel.

A large majority (85%) said they thought the centralisation of travel programmes would intensify and while 82% said there was a growing trend to analysing business travel expenses.

The survey found that surprisingly few buyers worked full time on travel, even in the major companies.

Among the big spenders, only 29% spend 1005 of their time on travel while 41% said they spend less than 25%.

At medium sized spenders, only 9% were full time and 55% less than 25%.

The buyers complained of a lack of time to do their job (37%), too man obligations (35%), arbitrary procedures (46%) and difficulty in balancing support for the traveller with the need to cut costs (69%).

www.airplus.com