Travel
managers again this year will focus most on cost controls, according to a
Carlson Wagonlit Travel survey. The travel management company in October and
November polled 290 travel managers worldwide and found that generating new airline
and ground transportation savings ranked as the top 2012 priority, followed in
order by improving traveler compliance, optimizing hotel spend and increasing
online booking adoption. Each of those areas also ranked in the top four in a CWT
survey released a year ago and in the new survey was cited by more than half of
respondents as a top-five priority.
At
the bottom of the list, "tackling meetings and events" and "making
the program more environmentally friendly" for a second consecutive year
ranked 10th and 11th, respectively. On meetings, CWT suggested the results
reflect "the fact that strategic meetings management programs, while
increasingly common, are often led by departments outside travel management."
On environmental concerns, the TMC wrote that " 'green fatigue' may be the
cause, or financial resources being stretched to the limit in tough economic
conditions." Meanwhile, traveler safety and security needs fell to ninth
this year from eighth, "perhaps because many companies have already
tightened their procedures in the wake of natural disasters and other events
that have disrupted travel in recent times."
Survey
results showed slight regional variations. In North America and Asia/Pacific,
for example, improving traveler compliance ranked as the highest 2012 priority.
Across
the full survey base, "actively reminding employees of policy" was
the most-cited measure respondents indicated their organizations would take
this year to improve compliance (cited by 68 percent), followed by
"engaging management throughout the organization" (62 percent),
"tracking and communicating compliance levels" (56 percent),
"communicating and providing training on travel policy" (55 percent)
and defining "clear and detailed guidelines in the travel policy" (50
percent).
To
achieve air and ground transport savings, travel manager respondents are most
likely to increase internal communications (52 percent) or "negotiate
multi-year contracts and implement flexible, dynamic negotiations with
suppliers throughout the year" (50 percent). To optimize hotel spend, many
intend to mandate use of preferred hotels (61 percent), mandate preferred
booking channels (47 percent), negotiate for amenities (44 percent) and
consolidate spending with fewer properties (41 percent). Five percent said they
would implement a dynamic pricing model.
CWT
also found that the most popular key performance indicators this year will chart
missed savings on air travel by comparing lowest logical fares available at
time of booking to what was actually paid (to be monitored by 63 percent of
respondents), use of restricted fares versus flexible fares (56 percent),
average ticket price benchmarks (56 percent) and trips avoided through
telephone or remote conferencing options (41 percent). Measuring the
"greenness" of hotels ranked at the bottom of the KPI list, with 8
percent of respondents indicating their organizations intend to track such
metrics.