‘94 Itinerary: More Trips, Tight Travel Budgets

Some year-end news for business travelers: You’ll be on the road more than ever in 1994 and ‘95, and the boss will be watching.

That’s the bottom line from a survey of 228 top executives in some of the country’s biggest companies.

“Senior management certainly expects business travel will increase in 1994, and they view 1995 even more aggressively than they view 1994,” said Jerry Landress, publisher of Business Travel News.

The publication produced the poll along with IVI Business Travel International, a global travel management firm, and its London-based joint venture Business Travel International.

But with travel costs the third-biggest controllable expense of most companies, Landress said, the survey also found that executives are becoming more involved in deciding who goes where, how they get there and where they stay.

In general, the survey found that executives are spending more time than they used to managing travel and that they expect to devote even more time to it.

Nearly 40% of the executives polled said they were directly involved in setting travel policy; only 11% said they were not involved.

One implication is that while the executives’ own experiences over the years “play heavily” in making travel arrangements, there is growing pressure to stretch budgets as far as possible, Landress said.

“The individual traveler is going to have fewer choices of airlines, hotels, rental cars” as companies look for value, he said.

David Meyer, editor of Business Travel News, said more than half the executives contacted said they would not pay for business-class air travel upgrades or memberships in airline clubs.

But, he said, there appears to be more willingness to let corporate travelers stay in the premium “business class” hotel rooms that have come into vogue recently, probably because employees are more productive in the work-friendly surroundings such rooms provide.

The survey also found that business travel will extend to more and more destinations, especially in Europe and the Pacific Rim.