Navigant: Recovery Slower Than Expected

Denver-based mega Navigant International today lowered its revenue predictions for the third and fourth quarters of 2002, citing the sluggish recovery of corporate travel.

Navigant reported a second-quarter increase in revenue of 2.4 percent over 2001, growth that, in large part, is due to its June 2001 acquisition of SatoTravel. However, the company lowered revenue expectations for 3Q and 4Q by just under 10 percent and yearly revenue predictions by about 5 percent.

The predictions were adjusted because an anticipated upswing in business travel has not transpired. "We were hoping that business travel would pick up in the third and fourth quarters, but we have not seen anything to suggest that this will actually happen," said president and COO Thom Nulty. "Travel is one of the first things companies cut, but it is also always one of the first things to come back."

Some of Navigant's clients have begun to increase their travel, Nulty said, but recovery is uneven. "In Houston, the oil and gas areas have been pretty strong as of late," he said. "There are some pockets of positive signs, but, overall, things are not recovering as quickly as we'd hoped they would."

Meanwhile, American Express last week announced that its consumer and corporate travel sales for 2Q02 came in at $4.3 billion, about 13 percent off from 2Q01.