American Express Global Business Travel clients during the April-June quarter this year spent 7.4 percent more on airline tickets than they did during the same period in 2013, and 7.2 percent more on hotel rooms. Amex noted that strong demand from "professional services, manufacturing and technology/communications industries" fueled the overall growth.
Based on second-quarter bookings by U.S.-based Amex GBT customers and excluding taxes and fees, the data also showed a 5.7 percent decline in client car rental costs. That discrepancy from the growth measured in air and hotel spending "may point to nontraditional disruptors in the [ground transportation] space gaining traction amongst business travelers," according to Amex.
Meanwhile, the travel management company reported that its clients during the second quarter booked 87.5 percent of domestic U.S. airline tickets in coach class. For international trips, they booked 55.7 percent in coach class, 1.1 percent in "premium coach," 40.6 percent in business class and 2.6 percent in first class.
Other second-quarter Amex data: Average trip length was 3.1 days for domestic and 6.6 for international, while 67.9 of all booked flights were direct and 32.1 percent were nondirect. The top three domestic city pairs were, in order, New York LaGuardia-Chicago O'Hare, New York LaGuardia-Boston and New York JFK-San Francisco. The top three international destinations were London, Toronto and Paris.