USA TODAY: …Businesses will send more people out on the road next year, making up for lost time during the recession, when travel budgets were slashed and corporate trekkers mostly stayed put, corporate travel managers say.
But the frugality that took hold in the economic downturn will continue, they say. Companies will opt for coach over more expensive first-class airline tickets.
The tickets will more often be bought in advance rather than at the last minute, which costs more. And videoconferencing will be used if a face-to-face meeting on the road isn’t critical.
“At the end of the day, people have to go see their customers, and they have to see their suppliers, and you can’t do everything over the phone,” says Ron DiLeo, executive director of the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE), an international group of corporate travel managers and executives at the airlines, hotels and others in the industry that supply them. “They’re not going to think twice (about traveling) if they think it’ll help close the deal.” (more)
