This document provides information that identifies some of the expected travel delays that will occur and undoubtedly affect those with a daily commute to work, steps that, as our clients, you should consider to help minimise the impact on travel-related business activities of your organisation. Equally, this document reflects our determination to maintain a ‘business as usual’ service to all of our customers throughout the Olympics Games 2012 period.

Global economic uncertainty, including the risk of another recession in the euro zone, has led corporate travel consultant Advito to lower its 2012 forecast for airfare prices in Europe. At the same time, Advito expects tight inventory and strong demand in emerging markets to drive higher costs in Latin America and Asia.

Trips to emerging markets helped push corporate travel to pre-recession levels this year, and travel to those same markets is expected to buoy the industry in 2012, despite economic malaise in Europe and North America, according to the 2012 Industry Forecast released by BCD Travel consulting unit Advito.

The Customer Always Knows Best

Business travelers’ expectations are unavoidably colored by trends in the consumer space—yet the elements that characterize traditional corporate travel program management are far removed from the daily realities of the consumer world. Travel managers need to embrace a model that privileges travelers’ consumer-driven behaviors and expectations, as well as acknowledges the needs and preferences of the Millennial generation, who by 2014 will comprise almost 50 percent of the U.S. workforce.

This white paper provides an overview of the opportunities and challenges for managed travel posed by the inexorable and irreversible rise of social Web (user generated content and social networking) and mobile technology. Secondly, it guides travel program stakeholders in leveraging these concepts to serve the evolving needs, constituents and consumers of corporate travel and meetings within the framework of a managed program.

Merchant fees have become the single-largest distribution cost for airlines, and in recent years, several factors have led air carriers to search for ways to reduce or offset that cost. Unfortunately for corporate travel buyers, any likely move that airlines may take to reduce or offset merchant fees represents an increase in travel program costs.

White Paper : From numbers to action.
Improving travel program management through strategic KPIs and meaningful savings measurements.