10% more business travel flights recorded
Ten per cent more business flights have been booked by members of the Guild of Business Travel Management in the first half of the year than the same period in 2005.
Latest figures from the 32-member organisation show that more than 3.45 million flights were booked in the first six months of 2006.
GTMC chief executive Philip Carlisle said: “That impressive figure is 10% up on the January-June period last year, and represents an additional 315,000 airline bookings.
“British companies are clearly making the most of the UK’s economic muscle to seek out new business opportunities overseas.”
Guild members handled a total of 6,466,195 transactions on behalf of their client companies – 7.7% more than in the first half of 2005 – including more than 1.47 million hotel bookings (also up 7.%) and more than 1.16 million rail journeys (up 2.4%).
“Rail and car hire transactions for the April-June second quarter were actually slightly lower than in the previous year but that is simply a reflection of the later four-day Easter break,” said Carlisle.
First-half figures show an overall 2.7% increase in car rentals, and a 5.2% increase in “other” transactions – which can be anything from arranging travel insurance to pre-purchasing airport car parking.
Report by Phil Davies
Phil Davies
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