Trips to emerging markets helped push corporate travel to pre-recession levels this year, and travel to those same markets is expected to buoy the industry in 2012, despite economic malaise in Europe and North America, according to the 2012 Industry Forecast released by BCD Travel consulting unit Advito.

Corporate travel programs can learn a lot from businesses that market directly to consumers. By harnessing widely available technologies and taking advantage of behaviors ubiquitous among private consumers, corporate travel programs can communicate more effectively with travelers, achieve higher traveler satisfaction levels and even increase leverage with suppliers.

Advito, leading consultancy provider for business travel, finds that costs for air travel will continue to rise in the course of the year. This is mainly due to the rising fuel costs.

Corporate travel buyers will face a confluence of factors leading to an increase in the overall cost of travel in 2011, according to the 2011 Industry Forecast by BCD Travel consulting unit Advito. These factors include steadily rising demand, caution by suppliers in adding capacity, earlier closure of lower fare “buckets,” increased application of restrictions to lower fares, and a continuing trend toward ancillary fees and unbundled services.

This white paper provides an overview of the opportunities and challenges for managed travel posed by the inexorable and irreversible rise of social Web (user generated content and social networking) and mobile technology. Secondly, it guides travel program stakeholders in leveraging these concepts to serve the evolving needs, constituents and consumers of corporate travel and meetings within the framework of a managed program.

Merchant fees have become the single-largest distribution cost for airlines, and in recent years, several factors have led air carriers to search for ways to reduce or offset that cost. Unfortunately for corporate travel buyers, any likely move that airlines may take to reduce or offset merchant fees represents an increase in travel program costs.

White Paper : From numbers to action.
Improving travel program management through strategic KPIs and meaningful savings measurements.