With airlines and hoteliers aggressively working to keep the number of empty seats and vacant rooms low, it isn’t taking much growth in travel demand to edge up airfare and hotel prices in most markets around the world, according to the update to the 2013 Industry Forecast from Advito, BCD Travel’s independent consulting unit.

Traveler Management: How to influence your employees to plan, book and travel smarter encourages travel managers to fundamentally change their approach to corporate travel programs, and makes the case that the traditional “command and control” approach to travel management offers fewer opportunities for innovation than building strong relationships with travelers.

In a reflection of global economic uncertainty, demand for business travel is steady but unlikely to grow significantly in the near future, according to the update for the 2013 Industry Forecast from Advito, BCD Travel’s independent consulting unit.

Advito's 2013 Industry Forecast includes forecasts for air, hotel and ground transportation, key industry developments and their effect on managed travel, the influence of global and regional macroeconomic factors, key tactics for optimizing supplier negotiations, and - new this year - secondary spend and ways to influence travelers on the go.  The forecast also contains special “spotlights” on Middle Eastern airlines, Australian and Indian markets, airline consolidation, ancillary fees and important considerations in hotel negotiations in 2013.

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.

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.