Corporate travel to grow in Q3

NEW DELHI: Corporate travel in the country is expected to clock growth in the third quarter of 2009. As per projections made by American Express, while Q1 of the year is expected to continue to witness a drop in corporate travel business, the second quarter might see a revival and Q3 should bring growth.

American Express business travel India's head Manoj Chacko said, "Corporate travel industry started to witness a drop in November. The year on year growth for corporate travel business is expected to be more or less flat registering a marginal decline." He added that companies have cut down their budgets and are rationalising costs.

"Typically companies only considered airfare to be the most important cost of travel, however now the entire round trip costs which includes hotel stay and cab rentals is being counted as travel cost and hence efforts are being made to rationalise all the expenses," he said.

Mr Chacko also pointed out that corporates are looking at international trips with longer duration to cut down the frequency of travel. The company is currently offering tools to help corporate rationalise their travel costs taking into account factors like need to travel, change in a company's travel policy and re-negotiating deals with hotels and aviation companies.