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
Vegas’s Billion-Dollar Secrets – What They Don’t Want Tourists to Know
Visit Florida’s New CEO Bryan Griffin Shares His Vision for State Tourism with Graham
Chicago’s Tourism Renaissance: Graham Interviews Kristin Reynolds of Choose Chicago
Graham Talks with Cassandra McCauley of MMGY NextFactor About the Latest Industry Research
Destination International’s Andreas Weissenborn: Research, Advocacy, and Destination Impact
Graham and Don Welsh Discuss the Success of Destinations International’s Annual Conference
Graham and CEO Andre Kiwitz on Ventura Travel’s UK Move and Recruitment for the Role
Brett Laiken and Graham Discuss Florida’s Tourism Momentum and Global Appeal
Graham and Elliot Ferguson on Positioning DC as a Cultural and Inclusive Global Destination
Graham Talks to Fraser Last About His England-to-Ireland Trek for Mental Health Awareness
Kathy Nelson Tells Graham About the Honour of Hosting the World Cup and Kansas City’s Future
Graham McKenzie on Sir Richie Richardson’s Dual Passion for Golf and His Homeland, Antigua
ADS PRO 
Qatar Airways offers reduced timetable to over 60 destinations
Hands In, UATP join forces for airline multi-card payments
AirlineRatings reveals world's safest airline rankings for 2026
Vietnam warns airlines of possible flight reductions amid jet fuel shortages
Fliggy opens AI-powered travel bookings and developer tools