Business travel agents have reason to be cheerful
Latest figures from UK travel management companies show business travel is going "from strength to strength".
The Guild of Travel Management Companies, whose members account for more than 80% of the UK spending on managed business travel, is confident the growth will continue this year.
In a survey of the fourth quarter of 2013 it found transactions rose 7% over the same quarter in 2012.
This far exceeds UK Gross Domestic Product (GDP) figures for the same quarter, which saw the economy record 0.7% growth.
In the full year, transactions rose 6% "far surpassing the UK as a whole, despite the economy growing at fastest rate since 2007".
"The GTMC 2013 year end transaction figures are very positive, proving that business travel is continuing to go from strength to strength," said GTMC chief executive Paul Wait.
"The recent Deloitte survey of CFO’s also gives reason to be optimistic with 57% stating that now is a good time to be putting risk back on to the balance sheet and therefore a good time to start looking at expanding businesses, investing and exporting.
"This, combined with our recent figures suggests that we have every reason to be confident that this gradual increase in year over year growth will continue into 2014 and beyond."
Hotel transactions for 2013 were up 12% on 2012, 5% up for rail, and 8% for car hire.
Air sales, meanwhile, rose 3% year-on-year and other services, such as consultancy services, ferries, visas, currency exchange and meet and greet, were up 6%.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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