Travel Business Pages » business travel

GTMC says hands off business travel

Alan — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 02:27:49 +0000

GTMC, the Guild of Travel Management Companies, has asked the government to make business travel exempt from the ATOL reforms it is planning. The organisation has welcomed the governments reforms that mean airlines will have to contribute to ATOL to protect people travelling for leisure but has said that doing the same for business travellers is a mistake.

A statement by GTMC has said that the government have not defined what is intended for business travel in their draft proposal. They have said that they want the government to exclude it entirely from the new regulations.

GTMC commented about the reforms, “They are going to have a significant impact on the business travel market as they are currently flawed. They are only going to serve to increase confusion in the sector.” The reforms are intended to come into force in January and GTMC has said, “We are urging the government to delay the date of the reforms until July so that they can use the extra time to clear up any uncertainties in the documents”

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Third of businesses question the value and viability of business travel

Alan — Sat, 09 Jul 2011 05:49:50 +0000

A new study has indicated a disconnect between the increasing use of business travel in Europe and declining value. Business executives say that 25% are going to increase their volume of travel in 2011 while 33% question whether the business actually benefits from the travel and that many think out of the office meetings could be conducted via video conferencing.

Others admit to feelings of missed family, stress and not being home for important dates like birthdays and anniversaries. Coleman Parkes Research conducted a study on behalf of Polycom a unified communications leader.

The study sheds some light on at least one reason behind the disconnect; 50% of the short haul flights were executives attending additional regular meetings of which many could have been conducted via a video conference for much less time, money and disruption of business and family.

The study also found that 40% of the companies still have not implemented video conferencing. Polycom video conferencing has helped one of the leading brewers of beer in the world. The video conferencing solution has allowed for a large reduction in travel and has boosted productivity.

Coleman Parkes interviewed over 400 senior business executives in January and February 2011 across Europe and from varying industries all at companies with 1,000 or more employees. They focused on executives who frequently traveled and included Marketing Directors, COOs, CMOs, Senior Consultants and Sales Directors.

Among the key findings were that over 50% of all the short haul flights were for regular meetings. Over one third of the executives questioned whether the value for the business was there. Another one third said many of their meetings could have been conducted with video conferencing.

A full 46% feel the company would save a great deal over time by using video conferencing. Over 40% indicated they arrived late for a planned meeting due to delays in traveling. In 2010 the average senior director of a company took seven to eight flights domestically and between six and seven international flights. Over 30% of executive that were interviewed spent more than three weeks outside the office at meetings in 2010.

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Has business air travel changed for ever?

Alan — Tue, 24 May 2011 08:29:00 +0000

During the recession the trend of business travel has had changes. Premium and business travel is important for airlines to help their profits but because of the recession the demand has changed. During the recession there was found a significant reduction in short-haul flights and not received much good news as the recovery has started in the economy.

One change that seems permanent is from taking short flights to using the train. The difference with travelling by rail is that even though the actual flight on a plane may be much quicker, there is still a lot of time lost in the airport and in long lines making it at times quicker overall to travel by rail.

With large areas of America and Europe working on new lines for high speed rail, this may eventually becomes the long term norm for short haul trips. Long haul journeys also were down during the recession. Fewer people were flying eliminating unnecessary journeys but this is slowly returning to the trend since most countries are returning from the recession.

Over distances of great length there is still not cheaper means of transport or quicker nevertheless companies will probably continue to look at different options to cut down on travel with fuel being so expensive.

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Business still wants to make good use of business travel

Alan — Tue, 17 May 2011 21:29:46 +0000

According to a recent UBS poll of corporate travel managers, business travel expenditures for airfares are holding steady or increasing over last year’s spending. Even with such negative factors as increased ancillary fees and an overall rise in the cost of airfare, only a small percentage of the businesses surveyed indicated that they would be cutting back on their travel budget.

About one fifth of the respondents said that their companies have increased corporate air travel spending by at least 20% from the same time period in 2010. More than half indicated that spending was up by some percentage, with almost half of those companies reporting expenditures up by at least 11% to as much as 20%.

When asked about the forecast for the rest of 2011, the response from travel managers was similar. About 25% said they expected to see an increase in spending from 2010 of anywhere from 11% to 20%, and another 16% anticipated an increase of 20% or more. The conclusion reported by UBS is that in general, corporate spending in this area is not going to fall off in the coming months.

The UBS analysts also reported that some airlines are doing better than others in gaining their share of the business travel market. United, Delta and Southwest airlines all showed an increase in the number of fares sold, while others, including US Airways and American Airlines showed a loss. USB did not account for this result except in terms of low-cost carriers looking to secure a bigger share of the business travel market.

About 75% of the companies polled said that the rise in air fares had not affected their volume of travel, and almost two-thirds said there has been no change in their travel policies in the last year. Also, around four-fifths of respondents said they had not increased restrictions on spending for such ancillary services as in-flight Wi-Fi and checked baggage.

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Tips for Business Trips

admin — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 17:01:14 +0000

In an age of globalisation, borders for businesses are progressively falling and people are conducting deals all around the world. This means that many people are forced to travel extensively for business. Some trips are just short hops to local destinations, while other involve cheap flights to Bangkok to tap into the Asian market. This has created a whole new culture amongst business people who live their lives heading from airport to airport and country to country. Understandably it is difficult to adjust to this hectic lifestyle, but here are three tips that should make it easier.

Baggage is very important in the world of business travel. If you are lugging around a giant suitcase, you’re doing something wrong; you need to have something that is light and easy to carry around with you, yet still big enough to hold all your clothes. All baggage companies make bags specifically for this, so stop by a store and pick one up. Ideally, it will be small enough that you can carry it on for your flights – this means that you can avoid waiting in lines to pick up your bag on the other end. This will save you valuable time and take some of the stress out of travelling.

A good network of friends around the world will also help you enjoy travel. Being in a foreign city can be quite lonesome, but if you have a friend in the area it will make your time far more enjoyable. They are also likely to have some local knowledge of the area and can show you the sites and good restaurants. So tap into your global network and get in contact with your friends around the world.

Finally, make sure to set yourself up a Skype account. This great service lets you speak to anyone over the internet, provided they also have a Skype account as well. You can also use web-cams to speak face to face. Business trips take you away from your family for extended periods of time – Skype lets you connect with them no matter where you are, without charging you a thing.

These three tips should help you make the most of business travel. Unfortunately it is a necessary evil of the modern world, but it can be made quite manageable and even enjoyable in some cases. After all a business trip to Bangkok isn’t the worst thing in the world.

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BA boss spells out airlines future as he sees it

Alan — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 05:10:21 +0000

The Business Travel market hosted the captains of the business travel and aviation industries with a presentation speech by the British Airwars CEO Willie Walsh.

Walsh addressed a crowd of 350 visitors, exhibitors, suppliers, and buyers at the event, which took place at ExCel, and told them that he had new found optimism and confidence in the industry.

Walsh thanked the delegation for staying loyal to BA and stated that the industry has many challenges and issues facing it, but that BA will still be committed to both short haul and long haul travel without sacrificing their transatlantic business.

He also said if the economic recession had not occurred the BA would have been able to continue with its expansion plans for the USA creating long haul routes from London to Boston, Chicago, and Washington DC.

Walsh also took a look at Middle East carriers praising Emirates for being a rational carrier but stating that there may be a need in the Middle East to decrease from three hubs to just two. However, he said that he would not be after the third runway issue, instead looking at other access opportunities.

In reference to Unite and the strikes, Walks stated that there is a large difference between the views of the cabin crew and Unite and that if there is any further action it would be centred on getting the same level of success so that 100% of their long haul operations would continue as planned.

He stated over and over that now is the time to get the airline industry back onto schedule and stated it is possible even though there is a long road yet to take.

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Business travel beginning to creep forward

Alan — Wed, 09 Jun 2010 19:51:32 +0000

Expedia’s travel management subsidy Egencia has seen a gradual improvement in the business travel environment over the first three months of 2010.

Vice president of Egencia Americas supplier relations Noah Tratt stated that corporate travellers are starting to return to the road and the air, although companies are still attempting to control their travel expenditures.

However, compared with the first quarter of 2009, the largest price hike in the travel industry for North American business travellers was to London, which were almost a quarter more expensive in terms of the dollars decline. Tokyo is the only location that dropped in travelling price.

In terms of European point of sales, the picture is a bit fuzzier with Egencia determining that there was a bit of downward pressure in pricing as the result of low cost carriers joining the marketplace and other load factors. In fact, prices for Europe to London dropped by 5% during the first three months of 2009.

Even lower this quarter in comparison to 2009 were hotel average daily rates according to Egencia, which was the result of corporations still, looking for the best hotel deals even despite the fact that business travel is up overall.

Demand from the events and meeting market is still week with the overcapacity of many key markets causing supply to look distorted. London, Berlin, Paris, and Munich saw slight increases in their hotel ADR’s however by slight margins ranging from 2-4%.

In order to compile their results, Egencia quizzed travel buyers from North America and Europe out of which 45% of Europeans stated that travel volumes will continue to increase over the course of the year.

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