A Good Year For All Is Even Better For Those At The Top

By Cheryl Rosen / July 18, 1999

A Good Year For All Is Even Better For Those At The Top

By Cheryl Rosen

In the context of the 15 years during which Business Travel News has tracked the profession of travel management, the past 12 months will go down as neither the best nor the worst of years, with the overall increase in salaries clocking in at a respectable but not record-breaking pace. Nonetheless, this year's Salary and Attitudes Survey clearly shows that the profession has proved its value to a cost-conscious Corporate America.

The 548 responses we received this year show definite signs of an improving job market for travel professionals across the board. But those at the top end, who manage travel departments and are responsible for corporate programs, did even better. Where the overall increase in salaries reported by all travel managers averaged 5.9 percent, those already earning more than $90,000 got an average raise of 7.3 percent, while their staffers earning less than $40,000 averaged just 5.2 percent.

"At the high end, salaries are going through the roof," said Jason King, president of Yours In Travel Personnel, a national placement agency based in New York. The growing demand for professionals with experience managing travel programs for companies with $50 million or more in annual air volume is pushing top-tier salaries well over the $100,000 mark.

"In the first half of 1999 we haven't taken a single job order for less than $100,000, and we've placed 80 or 85 travel managers, including one job in Florida, the state with the lowest salaries in the United States," King said. "We have four East Coast openings now, all with more than $50 million in air volume, paying $100,000 to $135,000, and one in the Chicago area paying $140,000."

But even "in this dry market," a willingness to accept responsibility for additional corporate services, including purchasing, commissary, fleet management, corporate jets and special events, helps, said King. "Travel managers today are not just negotiating with vendors, setting corporate policy and overseeing service delivery to travelers. They are taking on additional responsibilities like purchasing, and that's pushing salaries much higher."

Carol Salcito, president of travel consultancy Management Alternatives Inc. of Stamford, Conn., had the same reaction to the survey results. "When you're talking about someone who's really managing the travel process--working directly with suppliers, doing the selection and the negotiations, and moving traffic--salary levels are definitely in the $100,000s," she said. "But while salaries have increased, so have the responsibilities. Travel managers may be wearing multiple hats, maybe handling fleet or cafeteria services. They have to be much more qualified; they have to have financial skills; they have to know how to negotiate."

Also working in travel managers' favor is a growing willingness among large corporations to go national--or even international--in their search for experienced professionals, King said. Among the jobs he's handled in 1999 were "at least seven or eight from overseas."

"I've never seen as much relocation as I have in the past two years," he said. "It used to be that California companies wanted California travel managers, but now everyone is open to relocation. They all just want someone who can do the job."<A NAME="1">

A Little Extra

The trend toward bonuses is clear, with nearly half of travel executives and about 40 percent of all travel department staffers eligible for rewards beyond their base salary this year. For travel executives, bonuses are becoming the norm at the $70,000 salary level, where half of respondents receive them. That number grows to 70 percent at the $90,000-and-up level.<A NAME="2">

Don't Worry, Be Proactive

In 1993, travel and meeting professionals' top concerns were job security, salaries and their professional image. But today's travel executives are proactive worriers: their concerns center around putting together programs and lining up the senior management support to make them real in the hopes of advancing up the corporate ladder. For travel department staffers, opportunity for advancement is the key issue, followed by the stress of a busy workload, and for both groups, salary is less of a concern than opportunity--though, not surprisingly, it is ranked first by those earning less than $40,000. If you think life is never fair, consider this: stress was listed as their number-one concern by 41 percent of those earning more than $90,000. <A NAME="3">

Stress, Anyone?

With all the additional responsibilities many have taken on in the past five years, it's no wonder travel managers are stressed. Where the number overseeing air, hotel and car negotiations has topped 80 percent throughout the years, the number of travel managers taking on travel agency selection, railroad negotiations, CRS selection, leisure travel for employees, car and air fleets and incentive planning have all grown significantly. In the next two years, more than 20 percent of respondents expect electronic expense reporting and intranet travel sites to be the hot spots for growth, while more than 15 percent expect to take on incentive planning, procurement cards, aircraft and car fleets, parking, cell phones and laptop computers. Also interesting is the growth of the profession over the past five years. In 1994, for example, only 12 percent of travel executives chose an agency for their travelers. On the group side, travel offices appear to have divested themselves of responsibility for meeting planning while insourcing high-end incentive programs.<A NAME="4">

Movin' On Up

Overall, salaries of all members of corporate travel departments increased an average of 5.5 percent, with women gaining slightly on men (5.6 versus 5.4 percent). The gains rose in direct proportion to existing salaries, where those earning less than $40,000 gained an average 5.0 percent; those already earning more than $90,000 gained 6.7 percent. Travel managers, supervisors, vice presidents and directors averaged a 5.9 percent increase, and in that group, those earning more than $90,000 received an average raise of 7.3 percent. At this supervisory level, even more parity between the sexes was obvious, with women averaging 6.0 percent raises while men averaged 5.6 percent. West Coast travel managers saw the biggest raises--more than a third of them received an increase of 7 percent or more, and the mean for the group was 6.6 percent. The East Coast came next, with pay checks fattening by 5.9 percent, followed by the central states, with an average 5.6 percent.<A NAME="5">

At The Top, Salary Rises With Increased Responsibility

Travel executives at the higher end of the salary scale took their futures into their own hands with an active rather than a passive approach to winning higher salaries, attributing their raises to taking on additional responsibilities, while those at the middle of the salary curve relied on doing the same jobs better. Twice as many in the middle salary bracket, as in the highest, attributed their success to improving their performance, while 9 percent received their raise by changing jobs. Those earning more than $90,000, however, ventured into new roles--deploying technology or taking on global or meetings programs--to boost themselves up the corporate ladder. Women in particular attributed their success this year to better communication with senior management, with 39 percent citing it as the number-one factor in their salary increase, while 41 percent of men attributed theirs to an improved performance in their existing position. Both sexes listed those two criteria as first and second, followed by deploying technology as the third most important step in moving up. East Coasters alone were high on meetings consolidations this year, with 12 percent of travel managers citing that as a boost to their careers.<A NAME="6">

When in Doubt, Follow The Money

Reporting to finance seems to be the ticket to the top of the travel salary scale, followed by having a boss in purchasing--presumably because the cost focus of these two departments helps them understand the value of a travel management program to the corporate bottom line. <A NAME="7">

Getting Better

Times are good for the profession, with 60 percent of travel office staffers and 66 percent of executives seeing more opportunity now than in the past. Three-fourths attributed that to increased interest by management, 44 percent to higher travel spend and a third to the change from profit to cost centers.<A NAME="8">

Opportunity Knocks

Interestingly, those already earning the highest salaries are most prone to change jobs for more money or better opportunities--more so than those in the middle salary ranges. Presumably, that's because they recognize how in demand their skills are in today's environment. While travel staffers earning between $50,000 and $89,999 also are most apt to quit for a raise, far fewer of them cited that reason. And their second-biggest motivators were more challenging work and job security, not better prospects for advancement. For the $70,000 to 90,000 group, the opportunity to manage a larger program also proved a temptation.<A NAME="9">

Here Today...

Not surprisingly, travel staffers at the lowest salary level are much more apt to look for a new job than those already earning $90,000 or more. Half of those earning less than $70,000 are more willing to take a chance on a job change than they were in the past, a number that falls to 43 percent of those earning $70,000 to $89,999, and 40 percent of those earning $90,000 plus. Execs in the lower-paying central states are much more likely to be looking than those on the coasts.<A NAME="10">

Older And Smarter

Travel managers in the top salary range are older and better educated than their lower-paid counterparts, and work for larger companies. While women predominate at the lowest salary level, they are overtaken by men at the top. Still, there's hope for more equality: Female travel managers, supervisors, vice presidents and directors on average received larger raises this year than their male counterparts (6.0 versus 5.6 percent). And more than half of all men (57.4 percent), but only 44.9 percent of the women, received raises of less than 5 percent.<A NAME="11">

Go In The East, Young Man

There's unrest on the East Coast, where opportunity abounds: 23 percent of travel executives are dissatisfied with their salaries and 3 percent are very dissatisfied. Those numbers were only 10 and 3 percent, respectively, in the West. The central states, with 16 and 4 percent,respectively, took the middle ground.

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