Travel managers in the UK are not expecting to cut business trips even if the country goes back into recession, according to a study by corporate card provider Airplus.
The survey found that nearly a third of British travel managers were anticipating a rise in trips by their employees in 2012 while only 9% expected the number of business journeys to drop this year.
Yael Klein, Airplus International?s managing director, said: Travel managers say they don?t expect travel to dip even if the UK slips into another recession? or things get tougher economically.
?Some 29% of travel managers think travel will rise because they can no longer afford not to travel. They pulled back in the last recession but cannot afford to do this again.?
Klein added that the outlook for 2012 so far for its UK business was ?good? with companies booking more business class airline seats and a higher number of hotel stays.
But she said that travel managers were facing an increase in costs on both airfares and hotels this year with cost control remaining a ?strategic priority? for buyers.
Airplus said that average airline ticket prices in the UK were up 6% in 2012 while the number of flights booked by clients rose by 16% and hotel stays were up by 22% on the previous year.
The company has also seen transaction volumes increase for both its company account and corporate cards by 26% and 23% respectively so far in 2012 compared to the same period last year.
Average flight fares for AirPlus? UK customers rose to ?431 in 2011 compared to ?414 in 2010 and ?371 in 2009. Hotel prices also went up in 2011 to ?193 from ?184 the previous year.
Patrick Diemer, chairman of Airplus? executive board, ?added that the company was performing well across its global markets.
?For the first weeks of this year we are significantly above plan,? he said. ?If we compare January 2011 with January 2012 there has been an increase in total revenue of 16%.
?We have never seen a year with more business travel than in 2011. All of our existing customers increased travel to levels not seen since before the 2008 financial crisis.
?The amount of corporate spend on our cards was ?10.3 billion last year ?? this was an 18% rise from the 2010 figure of ?8.8 billion. We are more cautious for 2012 in the light of the euro crisis and we are only predicting a increase in ?900 million for 2012.?
Klein said the focus for Airplus in the UK was to grow through strategic alliances with companies such as bank Santander, travel technology provider KDS, software firm SAP and OpenRail.
?In 2011, we were really focused on strategic partnerships and alliances. In 2012, we are hoping to grow them and take them further,? added Klein.
Klein said there were signs that environmental concerns were becoming less important for UK travel managers.
?Green is on a downward trend,? she said. ?There was huge hype around green but now there is a feeling of ?been there done that? and companies are moving on.?
Source: http://www.abtn.co.uk/news/0217060-buyers-confident-business-travel-will-grow
house of wax patrick willis team america snow day snow day neti pot iron chef
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.