When it comes to managed travel for U.S. businesses, it’s a case of “do as I say, not as I do.”
About two-thirds of upper-management and executive employees working for companies with travel policies stray from those policies when booking hotel, air or car rentals in order to make a more convenient reservation or collect loyalty points, travel research company PhoCusWright revealed in a recent report on managed travel.
Meanwhile, about half of the workers at the associate level also deviate from company travel policy.
“Among frequent travelers, compliance is a little lower,” Carroll Rheem, PhoCusWright’s director of research, said in a webcast detailing the report’s results. “Accordingly, lower-level employees are more likely to comply with policy than upper management and executives, who kind of do their own thing.”
PhoCusWright is owned by Northstar Travel Media, which also publishes Travel Weekly.
Adherence to business travel policies is expected to gain importance within the travel industry as companies continue to boost travel spending in the wake of the recession. U.S. business spending on domestic and outbound international travel totaled $251 billion last year, up 7.3% from 2010, and the Global Business Travel Association estimates it will increase another 4.6% in 2012.
PhoCusWright, which polled about 2,000 business travelers for the report, said that about a third of those surveyed work for companies with managed-travel systems, while two-thirds are unmanaged. Significantly for employees of companies that employ 5,000 people or more, that ratio is reversed. The typical business traveler spent about $5,600 on business travel during the past year.
Curiously, men spent about 80% more than women, on average. Meanwhile, unmanaged employees spent about 7% more than their managed counterparts.
Companies with managed travel policies were strictest with car rental reservations and were most lax with airline bookings. About a third of the managed travelers said they were obliged to use a specific travel agency or website to book travel, while 22% said they were free to use any booking method.
As for those who stray from company travel policy, about half cite time- and location-based convenience as a reason, while about a third say they can get a better price than what’s offered through corporate policy, according to PhoCusWright.
About 20% said they avoid company policy in order to earn more loyalty points with certain suppliers, while 18% prefer to book business travel using the same sources as they do for leisure trips.
As for types of reservations, managed travelers were most likely to avoid company policy with hotels. Just 45% of managed travelers surveyed said they “always” adhered to company policy when it came to hotel reservations, compared with 47% for airlines and 54% for car rentals.
The results, Rheem said, suggest that companies should take a closer look at policies when it comes to controlling travel costs and managing supplier relationships.
“Companies need to think of their business travelers as unmanaged free agents and endeavor to win, rather than force, compliance,” Rheem said.
Follow Danny King on Twitter @dktravelweekly.