Business travelers, to our knowledge, are
not injecting steroids as some baseball players allegedly have
done, but some road warriors do believe their colleagues are guilty
of cheating -- on their expense reports.
In a survey done
for American Express, 37% of business-traveler respondents said it
was somewhat or quite common for business travelers to hand in
expense reports with one or more completely false or bogus
charges.
Market research
firm Synovate conducted the online survey, The 2005 American
Express Survey of International Business Traveler Expense
Practices, in November and December.
Synovate
interviewed 500 business travelers, approximately 125 each from the
U.S., France, Germany and the U.K.
Regarding their
views of fictitious or bloated items in travel and entertainment
(T&E) reports, the respondents, who took at least one business
trip the previous year, were not referring necessarily to their own
T&E practices.
Among the findings,
45% of survey participants said their companies were somewhat or a
lot tougher in their policies on reimbursable T&E items over
the last two to three years.
And, reviewing
their own practices over that timeframe, 23% of business travelers
indicated they were somewhat or much more careful about complying
with their companies T&E policies.
Survey respondents
from France (56%) and Germany (55%) reported that their companies
are taking a harder line on T&E policies than U.S. (31%) and
U.K. (39%) participants indicated.