Many travel managers are taking steps to
ensure that their employers are not overly dependent on the outcome
of airline-GDS negotiations.
That conclusion can
be drawn from the National Business Travel Associations 2007
Business Travel Overview and Cost Forecast.
In that report,
released last week, 42% of travel managers said they planned to
exert pressure on their travel management companies to establish
direct connections to suppliers to trim costs.
When a travel
management company establishes a direct connection with an airline,
the GDS is bypassed, enabling the airline and the travel
management company to establish a
one-on-one commercial relationship.
About 34% of travel
managers said that they planned to examine potential savings by
diversifying their distribution sources, including using
alternative distributors or direct connections. For example, BCD
Travel recently announced that it would begin using the Farelogix
platform to access multiple GDSs, direct connections and inventory
from the Web.
In other findings,
the majority of respondents said they envisioned higher air and
hotel spending in 2007. Seventy-four percent said a contributing
factor in increased air travel spend would be higher fares; 65%
said more trips and 48% cited more travelers.
Respondents
reported that similar factors (higher rates, more trips and more
travelers) would lead to increased spending on hotels in
2007.
The NBTAs survey
also found that more corporations were using alternatives to
commercial air travel. Fifty-six percent said they used corporate
jets, charters, fractional jet ownership or very light jets. And
that number is growing: 33% of respondents in 2004 reported that
their companies used alternative jet travel such as charters or
corporate jets; 27% said they used those alternatives in
2002.
The report also
found that the use of online booking tools continues to
grow.
More than
three-quarters of companies are using online booking tools, an
increase of nearly eight percentage points over last year,
according to the NBTA.
Thirteen percent
plan to implement online booking in the future.
To
contact reporter Dennis Schaal, send e-mail to [email protected].