Citing signs of a significant rebound in business travel, as well as increased reliance on careful travel management: “Year to date our air transactions are already up 25 percent from last year.
Citing signs of a significant rebound in business travel, as well as increased reliance on careful travel management: “Year to date our air transactions are already up 25 percent from last year. We are seeing some new trends such as consolidated meeting spend being included in corporate travel bids. Corporations are looking to travel smarter rather than cut back. Our clients are utilizing analytic technology to help identify less costly days and times to travel based on their travel patterns as well as to improve supplier contract management. We are also noting a record number of Requests for Proposal. This recent activity is indicative of an improving economy and a reversal in the trend to cut business travel as a means to improve the bottom line.”
— Kerin McKinnon
Executive Vice President, Global Business Development
Atlas Travel International
At the Amadeus Executive Briefing Centre in Sophia Antipolis, where more than 100 travel management experts discussed the evolution of professional travel management: “Social media is here to stay, making the business traveler savvier than ever. The business travel industry can learn from the way leisure travel has successfully used social media to leverage all the new possibilities to create new business. … we need to be conscious of how this would work for corporate travel purposes, and the value that it could provide travel managers to better steer their travel policy, while at the same time delivering a better service and experience to the traveler.”
— Albert Pozo
Vice President, Multinational Business & Corporate Travel
Amadeus
Noting Gartner Research’s prediction that there will be 73 million “CrackBerry addicts” by the end of 2012, and how this may adversely effect productivity: “We are inclined to keep thinking about problems at work if they remain unresolved. … The answer, I believe, is to set yourself realistic goals every day and work until you run out of steam – or time. If you are still behind schedule, write a ‘to do’ list and leave it ready to tackle the next day. And if there’s an unresolved issue, impose your own cooling-off period by sending an email that invites a pause but keeps options open. In the end, it’s all about self-discipline.”
— Mark Dixon
CEO
The Regus Group