A solid majority of India-based travel managers said their travelers use online booking and expense management tools, but adoption of corporate payment methods is less common in the country, according to a survey of 157 Indian corporate travel managers conducted by the Global Business Travel Association and Visa.
The survey, conducted from Sept. 22 through Oct. 17, showed that "despite India's past reliance on offline, assisted booking practices," 76 percent of respondents used a self-service OBT, and 91 percent used an expense management system. Risk-management or traveler-tracking technology had high usage among respondents as well, with 63 percent of travel managers in India saying they had deployed such technology.
Adoption of corporate payment, however, was "inconsistent" among respondents. Just over half said they used corporate cards, and 30 percent said they used central travel accounts. However, 30 percent of respondents said their organization didn't use any corporate payment methods for travel within India, according to the survey. Virtual card and prepaid cards were each used by 7 percent of respondents.
The biggest obstacles to corporate payment compliance cited by buyers were lack of issuance and limited merchant acceptance, according to the survey.
Overall, buyers in the survey gave themselves fairly high marks in terms of program maturity, with 77 percent of respondents rating their program at least a seven on a 10-point maturity scale. Only 38 percent gave themselves a rating of nine or 10, according to the survey.