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Financial crisis forces travel cuts
Monday, October 20, 2008 A quarter of corporate travel managers surveyed by the Business Travel Coalition have admitted their companies have introduced emergency travel cutbacks in the last two weeks as a direct result of the global financial crisis. Some 192 travel managers from 14 different countries were polled by the US-based consortium, though 72% were from the US. Of those who introduced cutbacks, 35% said they had been forced into a complete travel freeze, while almost 20% admitted to cuts in air travel. The BTC commissioned the survey in response to members' concerns about the prospect of a recession. A spokesman said: “There is an eerie similarity to the last cyclical downturn in Autumn 2000. However, there is an order-of-magnitude increase in the seriousness of the current situation and in corporate responses regarding travel expenditures.” Almost 70% of respondents said that cutbacks will remain in place “until further notice”. The research also found that travel budget cuts have been good news for low-cost carriers in the US. “Many corporations began cutting back on air travel at the beginning of the year based on worsening economic data points. Surveys in the first quarter did not identify a pullback trend one way or another. However, by mid-year, it was broad based. We needed to explicitly capture corporations’ responses to the financial crisis to prepare for next year.”
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