Volker Huber

The Asia-Pacific region is home to the markets of the future.
Travel managers should diligently follow regional developments. According to experts’ forecasts, the region will experience a monumental upswing after the global economy has recovered.

So far, however, travel managers around the world are hesitant to approach this region because it is so foreign and different. The study conducted by ACTE and AirPlus shows that 72 percent of the interviewees assume that travel managers lack understanding for this region. Due to the different cultures of the individual countries, they said, it is impossible to implement measures that have proven successful in Europe or America (68 percent). In Asia, status and service, for example, are often closely connected. While in western countries, companies save by booking lower service classes, in Asia this means weakening the travel manager’s position.

However, it is not only cultural diversities that require heeding in the region. Travel management in Asia-Pacific is a young discipline and, just like a tender plant, it calls for careful cultivation.

The survey results of the latest ACTE/AirPlus White Paper show that modern travel management is still in the fledgling stages. A mere 34.5 percent of those interviewed in the Asia-Pacific region stated that they are using cost control as a basis for negotiating with service providers. In Europe, this share is 53.6 percent; in North America it is as high as 73.2 percent. The difference in online booking tools is equally as large: 13.5 percent in Asia-Pacific, 26.4 percent in Europe and 64.3 percent in North America.

Nevertheless, we should keep an eye on the region’s power of innovation and use it for our undertakings.

If you wish to establish effective business-travel management in Asia-Pacific, you must know the region’s peculiarities. The following factors are important:

• developing an understanding of its cultures;
• differentiating when addressing people; and
• being patient when changes need to be implemented.

In addition, we should not believe that we know better than them. With the required attention to details, we can contribute to overcoming distances.

Downloads:

AirPlus International / ACTE Whitepaper

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MOBI Download (672 KB)
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Author: Volker Huber, Executive Director & Senior Vice President of Global Sales & Solutions at AirPlus

The ACTE conference in Prague, Czech Republic, October 25-27 was a hot spot for highly interesting discussions. Will there be a need for a business class on continental flights in the future? Business travel by train is already a well accepted alternative to flight in some European countries! It is not only all about “how to travel” – more than ever travel management stands for demand management. These were some of the current issues which were discussed by travel managers after the release of the latest ACTE/AirPlus White Paper last week titled “Post Recession – Has the Travel Management Landscape
Changed Permanently?”.

Now you can read the Whitepaper also with eBook or Blackberry: Please click on ‘Research Center’.

Volker Huber

Corporate travel has certainly changed over the past two years, but are these changes permanent? 

This AirPlus International/ACTE whitepaper examines the current travel management landscape, whether it will return to where it was before the recession started or if it will be forever changed. Further explored are the implications for travel managers today and in the future.

A few questions explored in the whitepaper:

• Will travel volumes recover?
• Is virtual conferencing here to stay?
• How has traveler behavior changed?
• Have companies cut travel too far?

Download:
AirPlus International / ACTE Whitepaper (PDF, 1 MB)

Author: Volker Huber, Senior Vice President Global Sales & Solutions, AirPlus

Richard Crum

By Richard Crum, President, AirPlus International, Inc.

In the current economic climate, Travel Management is more important than ever. It’s improving the role and status of travel managers in one very notable way. Last year’s AirPlus International Travel Management Study of 1,500 travel managers in 15 countries provided significant evidence that lack of time, resources and status was preventing them from optimizing the power of their travel programs. Fast forward to 2009 and there appears to have been a change. Several travel managers have been quoted in industry publications as saying that senior management is finally giving them the support to make the radical changes to travel programs for which they had been pleading for years.

AirPlus and ACTE decided to put these claims to the test in a survey of the ACTE buyer membership, and the results are startling. No fewer than 62% of respondents say the economic downturn has made senior management more receptive to their ideas for managing the company travel program.

The jointly released whitepaper is entitled: Empowered employees – how travel managers are adapting and thriving in the global recession and examines why the situation has changed and how travel managers are taking advantage of their newly gained empowerment to transforming their travel programs. It also gives travel managers tips on how they can maximize the opportunity they have been given, not only to improve their travel programs but to consolidate their enhanced status within the organization.

Additional resource:
Empowered Employees. How Travel Managers are Adapting and Thriving in the Global Recession.
(PDF, 593.5 KB)