As business travel to and within Latin America grows, more companies there are tightening controls around travel programs, consolidating group and transient travel and pushing online booking tool adoption. The region still faces challenges with content fragmentation and control over payment methods, however.
In a March Association of Corporate Travel Executives webinar on Latin America travel management trends, BCD Travel Latin and North American affiliates program president Barbara Blue said companies in the region, particularly in Brazil and Mexico, increasingly are adding dedicated travel management professionals to their rosters. A 2010 study by ACTE and AirPlus of about 200 buyers indicated that a slight majority of companies there still delegate travel management as a part-time responsibility to employees with other roles, however. Corporate travel departments are virtually nonexistent in the region, Blue said.
As economies throughout the world emerge from the recession, corporate travel in the region is poised for further growth. In Brazil, for example, "it's like the economic downturn didn't even happen there," Blue said.
Colombia also is a growth market, "the next big market after you talk about Mexico," Blue said. The country in recent years has seen a sharp boost in meetings and events, particularly in Bogotá and Cartagena, said Claudia Davila, corporate tourism director for Proexport, Colombia's primary tourism organization.
"We've had a lot of new investment in hotels, and people are starting to realize that we exist," Davila said. "Within the United States, we still have to change the perception we have, but it's really growing."
Local management and understanding, however, is essential to any successful travel program in Latin America, Blue said. "The one mistake our colleagues from the U.S. make is to impose a U.S.-based or global program onto the region," she said. "Cultures are very different in every country. You can have global programs that are tailored to local expectations, but many don't even travel down to the region to get to know their colleagues."
While most companies in the region have much smaller travel volumes than their North American counterparts, thus limiting their ability to implement some best practices, in recent years they increasingly have been consolidating meetings with transient travel, said Ricardo Ferreira, vice president of HRG Brazilian affiliate agency Alatur. This primarily applies to Brazil, as meetings programs are less mature in other South American markets, Blue said.
Online booking tool use also is on the rise in Latin America. The ACTE/AirPlus study indicated that 81 percent of buyer respondents have a self-booking tool for at least some portion of their Latin America operations, though only one-third have implemented one across the entire region.
Latin American online booking adoption remains a challenge, particularly because many low-cost carriers in the region do not make their content available through global distribution systems, Blue said. Latin America's hotels also are highly fragmented and often must be booked by phone.
"I have a client in Brazil who has 80 percent adoption online, but that's mostly the domestic market," she said. "GetThere and Cliqbook have a ways to go."
In Brazil, most airlines provide domestic content to GDSs, Ferreira said. Even so, travelers often must book directly through airline websites to find the lowest fares. "Anyone who relies solely on the GDS will get most information on domestic travel in Brazil, but you will not be getting the best rates," he said.
Payment is another challenging area, with only 43 percent of companies in the ACTE/AirPlus study indicating that they have a sanctioned corporate payment tool across their Latin America operations. Those that do usually rely on centrally billed structures and ghost cards, as companies in the region are reluctant to distribute many individual corporate cards, Ferreira said.
"DuPont has a very aggressive program, with a few thousand cards, but as a rule, Brazilian companies and Latin American companies have restrictions and, culturally, resistance on giving plastic to employees," he said. "We do see movement and attempts to change legislation so it will be easier for Brazilian companies to use cards when it comes to hotels."
The article originally was published in Business Travel News.