ACTE Surveys Reflect Buyers' Budgeting Outlook, SARS Concerns

The Association of Corporate Travel Executives and Runzheimer International today released their 2003 Travel Industry Spending Forecast, finding that although the majority of travel budgets since last year have remained flat or decreased, only 19 percent of respondents foresee a budget decrease in the next year. The survey suggests that the downturn in travel may have bottomed out as timely travel hindrances, such as the war with Iraq and the "domestic alert status," are beginning to wane.

Echoing the survey's optimism, former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich in a keynote presentation this morning at the ACTE conference in Las Vegas said that unless there is "a big piece of bad news" in the near future, the industry's "recession" should rebound in the next six to 18 months. However, this year the number of aggregate travelers still will remain down, as only 22 percent of the 280 respondents said the number of travelers in their companies has increased.

Meanwhile, severe acute respiratory syndrome has become an elevated travel concern among 225 corporate travel managers attending the conference, with 79 percent indicating that SARS has replaced terrorism and war-related issues as the number-one threat to business travel.

"It has been reported that the SARS contagion has been contained in Vietnam and that the illness is on the wane in Toronto," said ACTE president Mark Williams. "That's good news that the worst is over. I still think there's room for research on the subject. Even if they have a solution to the SARS problem, it won't be long before another unknown disease comes along."

ACTE said it has begun an effort to foster relations with the World Health Organization and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to disseminate information to quell panic revolving around SARS and other potential health issues. To that end, ACTE has formed an international taskforce to establish relationships with the health organizations to promote the timely distribution of information. The members are Greeley Koch of the United States, Nadine Dewart of the Netherlands, Mike Malloy from the Asia/Pacific region and ACTE president-elect Gareth Joplin from Canada.

Meanwhile, ACTE announced that with the renewed sponsorship of GetThere it soon will commence a follow-up to last year's survey exploring attitudes of CFOs toward travel expenditures.