Travel management professionals generally enjoyed another year of salary growth, according to an annual member survey by the National Business Travel Association Foundation. Meanwhile, slightly fewer respondents than last year said they were spending time on organizing their travel budgets and applying technology, while more said they were responsible for negotiating with vendors, developing policy and benchmarking their travel operations.
The average professional involved in travel management earns a little more than $91,000 a year, up 3.3 percent from roughly $88,000 a year ago, according to the NBTA Foundation 2007 Travel Management Compensation and Benefits Survey of 232 travel management professionals. Travel professionals in all job titles, from vice president to coordinator/specialist, were predominantly female with a median age of "approximately 47" and average industry experience of 13.7 years. The most common job title among respondents was travel manager, and one-fourth of respondents report to finance.
Respondents were generally happy with their compensation. Forty-three percent said they were "satisfied" with their compensation and 19 percent were "very satisfied." Seventeen percent expressed dissatisfaction with their level of compensation. In addition, those with more travel management experience, advanced academic degrees, greater age and larger travel and entertainment budgets earned higher compensation. Compensation remains higher in the New England and Pacific regions than other parts of the country, as well as for men than women.
Respondents' companies had a median sales volume of $2 billion, a median annual domestic travel and entertainment budget of $18 million, a median international T&E annual budget of $5 million and travel departments consisting on average of six staff members. Forty-four percent of respondents said their travel programs are global and 18 percent said their organizations budget more than $50 million in annual domestic T&E expenditures.
More than half of respondents said they spend 76 percent to 100 percent of their time on travel management. Among the most common responsibilities, 94 percent take on vendor negotiations, 94 percent administer corporate travel programs, 89 percent develop and administer policy and 84 percent benchmark their organizations' travel operations. The percentages of respondents taking on those activities were generally a few points above what the NBTA survey showed in 2006. But the share of respondents who said they were responsible for developing and controlling a travel budget dropped from 70 percent to 66 percent in 2007, and the percentage of respondents responsible for applying new technology to travel management fell from 91 percent to 85 percent.
Travel managers are also likely to have other responsibilities, according to NBTA, such as managing relationships with a travel agency (83 percent), investigating traveler complaints (80 percent) and administering corporate card programs (47 percent). Nearly half of respondents, 44 percent, said they were also responsible for meetings management.
Large organizations tend to pay their travel professionals higher, as the survey showed an average salary of approximately $115,000 at companies with more than $5 billion in annual sales, compared to an average wage of $78,000 at companies with less than $100 million in annual sales. Average salaries for all job titles increased over the 2006 survey, with the greatest growth at the lowest and highest tiers. Coordinators/specialists on average reported wages 24.5 percent higher than last year, while vice presidents reported wages that were 18.4 percent higher.
More than 91 percent of respondents said their companies agree to cover professional association dues, tuition, convention attendance and other related expenses. Respondents had an average of 26 days of paid leave per year, combining vacation allotments with sick and personal leave allotments. Other benefits offered to employees included a 401(k)/403(b) retirement plan (offered to 70 percent of respondents), a pension plan (33 percent of respondents) and stock options (offered to 47 percent of respondents).
NBTA cautioned that the salary survey, conducted online between September and November, offers "guidelines" rather than "absolute standards" since organizations differ depending on their location, size and other factors.