Europe-Based Business Travelers Increasingly Are Booking Direct
by Cheryl Rosen /
Business travelers based in Europe’s three largest business travel markets – Germany, the United Kingdom and France – increasingly are booking their travel direct with suppliers rather than through their companies’ travel agencies or travel booking tools, according to a new survey by the Global Business Travel Asssociation. And that will make it more difficult for their companies to ensure duty of care and cost savings, the study says.
The study, Booking Behaviour II, conducted in partnership with Concur, found nearly a third of business travelers in each country expect to use “alternative channels” more often in the next year.
“As alternative channels are increasingly used, travel programs may have reduced visibility into booking over time, facing greater difficulty ensuring duty of care and achieving cost savings,” said Monica Sanchez, GBTA Foundation director of research. “It’s important for travel professionals to plan for this growing trend in their programs – ensuring they capture and manage employee travel no matter where or how it was purchased.”
Similar to last year’s booking behavior study, this year’s study found that three in five business travelers with access to a corporate online travel booking system used it in the past year to book a work trip. Millennials are the least likely group to use a corporate system and surprisingly, high-frequency travelers are much more unlikely to use one than infrequent travelers.
Mike Koetting, executive vice president of supplier and TMC services at Concur, noted that “unmanaged direct bookings can undermine travel program benefits, policy enforcement, duty-of-care obligations and supplier contracts. With traveler behaviors unlikely to change, new solutions are necessary to capture and manage corporate travel spend.”