The average air ticket price paid in the final
quarter of 2014 by United Kingdom-based customers of Carlson Wagonlit Travel
fell 2.1 percent year over year. According to CWT Solutions Group's debut
Quarterly Barometer of booking trends, the number of air transactions also
fell, by 2.2 percent. Average hotel room rate dropped 3.1 percent, while
average rail rate fell 1.6 percent. With average length of stay also down 0.7 percent,
per-trip cost for U.K. travelers was down 3.7 percent to £451.
The CWT figures concur with statistics released earlier this month by AirPlus International, which also showed airfares and
transaction numbers dropping in the United Kingdom. AirPlus UK managing
director Caroline Haywood observed that her clients are continuing to tighten
policy, and there is more evidence of this trend from CWT. Whereas bookings in
economy and premium economy were down 1.3 percent and 1.1 percent respectively,
they were down much more sharply in premium cabins: 5.4 percent in business
class (which accounted for 15 percent of all tickets bought by U.K. customers)
and 18.4 percent in first class.
"Despite the economy picking up, we still
see clients being very cautious with their travel spend," CWT Solutions
Group EMEA senior director Géraldine Valenti told BTN. "This leads to travel demand being carefully managed,
while low inflation explains the slight decrease in average ticket price. We
are not yet seeing changes in our clients' travel policies regarding the use of
more business or first class. The economy is now global, so positive signs in
the U.K. economy will not drastically change corporate behavior or policy, as
there are still areas where the economy is not doing so well, such as the
energy sector or the rest of Europe when compared with the U.K."
One anomaly in the U.K. figures was that the
number of hotel transactions climbed 5.4 percent, which Valenti attributed to
clients beginning to stem leakage of bookings outside authorized channels. "There
is definitely a drive toward booking hotel through the TMC, and the increased
options we are offering to corporate travelers looking to book hotels, such as
via CWT To Go [CWT's mobile app], can explain the improvement in compliance,"
she claimed.
CWT also issued barometers for Germany and
France, but these showed surprisingly different trends to the United Kingdom. Per-trip
cost in Germany rose 4.2 percent to €430, and in France rose 0.9 percent to
€285. (Forty-seven percent of trips by French travelers are domestic, compared
with 35 percent by Germans and 27 percent by Brits, which may explain why the
French average cost is lower). Although German clients booked fewer trips,
airfares rose 4.6 percent, rail fares 5.7 percent and hotel rates 0.4 percent.
In France, these three categories climbed 0.7 percent, 1.1 percent and 2.4 percent
respectively. CWT attributed the limited nature of the price rises to France's
continuing recession and added that long-haul fares rose 4.1 percent but were
offset by short-haul fares falling 4.8 percent owing to competition from
low-cost carriers.
The three barometers also tracked hotel booking
numbers for different cities around the world. The one consistent pattern
across all three markets was a fall in reservations for London and New York.
German travelers, for example, booked 15 percent fewer rooms in London and 24 percent
fewer in New York. "These cities are still key business destinations, but
in an environment where tight policies and cost control are the norm, expensive
locations have seen a drop in bookings," said Valenti. All three countries
also showed marked downgrading toward economy-category hotels.