While nearly all travel managers in a new survey indicated they have a corporate card program in place, and more than a quarter noted a great majority of their organization's travel spending is paid with the card, both those percentages are notably lower at smaller companies.
The survey of 242 travel managers, conducted in April by the Global Business Travel Association and sponsored by payment system provider TSYS, showed that companies on average paid for 69 percent of their 2013 travel spend using a corporate card. Twenty-six percent of travel managers said their companies paid for 90 percent or more of travel spend on corporate cards, while 31 percent paid for 75 percent to 89 percent of their travel spend on cards, according to the survey.
"Unsurprisingly, on average, a larger percentage of travel spend is paid for with a corporate card among companies with high spend, compared to medium- and low-spend respondents," according to the authors of the survey.
Travel managers working for high-spending companies, which represented a quarter of respondents, were defined as companies spending more than $30 million on travel. Medium-spending companies, representing 45 percent of respondents, spent between $5 million and $30 million, while low spenders (27 percent) were classified as companies spending less than $5 million on travel.
While 29 percent of travel managers from low-spending companies and 28 percent from medium-spending companies said their firms paid for 90 percent or more of travel spend, compared with only 20 percent of high-spending firms, according to the survey, the percentage of respondent firms with at least three-quarters of their travel spending on the card was much higher among high-spending companies (67 percent) than midsize (58 percent) or low-spending ones (42 percent).
Of the corporate card program aspects travel managers would most like to see improved, "controls and compliance" and "incentive/rebate programs" each were named by 39 percent of respondents. "Process efficiency" and "merchant acceptance" followed, each with 33 percent of travel managers citing a wish for improvement.