The average professional managing business travel earns slightly more this year than last year but is less likely to be responsible for certain key travel management functions, according to the 2006 NBTA Foundation Travel Management Compensation and Benefits Survey. Though most changes from the organization's findings last year were minor, a smaller percentage of respondents this year said they handle such tasks as administering and strategically developing corporate travel programs, investigating travel complaints, supervising reservationists and managing T&E expense reporting.
This year's poll found that travel management professionals are predominantly female with a median age of 46, have been involved in the travel management industry on average for 13 years and work for companies that average 5,100 domestic travelers, nearly 3,000 international travelers and a travel department staff of six. The average respondent earns a total compensation package worth just over $88,000, up by roughly 2 percent from last year and nearly 11 percent from 2002.
The survey compiled responses from 232 business travel professionals, two-thirds of whom had "travel manager" as part of their job titles. They represented organizations from all U.S. regions, as well as Canada, and across all industry segments (with manufacturing as the most represented). Respondents' organizations on average spend $62.7 million annually on domestic travel and entertainment, and $25.1 million on international T&E. The median annual company sales volume was $1.5 billion.
When breaking down salaries by title, vice presidents unsurprisingly earned the most, with average annual compensation of $134,587. The aggregate increase of 21 percent from 2005 also was highest. Directors were next at $122,507 (+5 percent), followed by managers at $84,298 (+1 percent). Supervisors ($69,893) and coordinators ($47,192) were the only two groups to show year-over-year decreases in average annual compensation, and also represented a smaller percentage of respondents than last year (taken together, down to 11 percent from 14 percent).
The survey also found that average compensation is higher among those reporting to administration departments, based in the Mid-Atlantic region, and working at companies with the largest sales volumes and T&E budgets. Average compensation is lowest among those reporting to human resources departments, located in Canada and the East South Central United States, and working at companies with the smallest sales volumes and T&E budgets.
"Respondents working for companies with annual sales of less than $100 million made 34 percent less on average than those working for companies with more than $5 billion in sales," according to the report. Overall, 58 percent of the respondents said they were either satisfied or very satisfied with their compensation packages. Twenty-two percent "expressed dissatisfaction."
Meanwhile, at least 80 percent of respondents said their employers offer most "major" types of insurance. The vast majority (90 percent or more) said their companies agree to cover professional association dues, continuing education, mileage reimbursement, convention attendance, professional publications and tuition reimbursement. Other employee benefits provided to respondents include a 401(k)/403(b) retirement plan (cited by 70 percent, with an average employer contribution of 6 percent of salary), pension plan (38 percent) and shares of company stock (23 percent).
Though travel management professionals oftentimes handle non-travel functions, more than half of survey respondents (55 percent) said they spend a clear majority of their time (between 76 percent and 100 percent) on travel management tasks. The most cited among them were:
- negotiating with travel vendors (a responsibility for 94 percent of respondents)
- administering a corporate travel program (91 percent)
- evaluating/applying new technology applicable to travel management (91 percent)
- strategically developing a travel program (90 percent)
- developing and administering travel policy (88 percent)
- benchmarking travel operations (86 percent)
- managing/supervising relationships with corporate travel agencies (83 percent)
- investigating travel complaints (72 percent)
- developing, controlling, analyzing and reporting a corporate travel budget (70 percent)
Interestingly, most of those areas of responsibility drew lower rates this year when compared with a similar survey last year. Strategic program development was cited by 5 percent fewer respondents this year, and investigating travel complaints was cited by nearly 10 percent fewer.
Most other areas of responsibility covered by the survey similarly drew lower response rates. Though some of these variances may be the result of polling different sets of respondents each year, only five areas of responsibility (out of 27 listed in the survey) showed an increase: managing the meeting planning function (54 percent this year versus 52 percent last year), processing VIP travel requests (35 percent versus 32 percent), handling emergency evacuations (26 percent versus 25 percent), crisis management (25 percent versus 21 percent) and managing corporate jets (22 percent versus 16 percent).
Meanwhile, both managing/supervising travel reservationists and managing on-site reservations facilities were responsibilities cited by 36 percent of respondents. For those who manage staff, the average number of supervised company employees is four and the average number of supervised outsourced employees is five.
There is a fairly even distribution of departments to which travel professionals report. Finance (24 percent) and purchasing (19 percent) topped the list, followed by administration, human resources and strategic sourcing. Other departments include operations, employee services, real estate, corporate services and physical assets/facilities.
Meanwhile, most respondents said they do not hold any travel industry certification. The Certified Corporate Travel Executive designation was most cited (27 percent), followed by Certified Travel Counselors (6 percent) and Certified Meeting Professional (4 percent). Only a few respondents said they were either a Certified Purchasing Manager or a Certified Travel Associate.
The NBTA Foundation cautioned that statistics should be viewed only as "guidelines rather than absolute standards," and that compensation comparisons between job titles in particular can be difficult "due to varying sample sizes."