BBT


CORPORATE CARDS SUPPLEMENT 2015


Travel trends By Amon Cohen


low-cost carrier tickets bought through its commercial cards surged more than 20 per cent in 2014. “That is not sur- prising given what Easyjet and even Ryanair are doing to work with the cor- porate sector,” says Citi’s head of EMEA wholesale cards product management, Steve Robson. Yet, paradoxically, while increased use of budget carriers has helped reduce average fares, Citi reports that the average low-cost carrier fare went up 2-3 per cent, possibly through greater use of more flexible but dearer fares aimed at business travellers. Robson notes higher growth in all types of transaction in the UK than for the rest of Europe – a trend supported by Amex, for which corporate card purchases rose 1.4 per cent in Europe as a whole in 2014, but purchases by UK cardholders climbed 2.8 per cent. These figures support the case that economic growth in the UK has been out-performing the eurozone. As for what cardholders are spending


their money on, both Amex and Airplus say they are seeing increasing amounts of non-travel and entertainment-related expenditure being channelled through their plastic cards. Around a decade ago, specialised purchasing cards (known as ‘p-cards’) were all the rage for handling this type of spend, but that seems to be changing. “It is all going on corpo- rate cards,” says Amex vice-president of sales Alan Gillies. “We are not growing p-cards at all now.” Airplus’s Haywood agrees. “Compa-


nies are being smarter about cashflow and using our cards to pay for materials,” she says. “If they buy straight away, they are getting a much better price, so we are opening more merchant categories for them and that means the average transaction value on corporate cards is going up.” That said, it is still the big ticket


travel items which dominate card spend, as figures from Mastercard show (see box, left). Yet most of the purchases are for much smaller amounts. Mastercard travel and ex- penses payment solutions business leader Martin Chapman says that


In association with


“82 per cent of transactions are with res- taurants, taxis and other small merchants, so companies are looking for good card acceptance”.


NEW TRENDS For a very different set of travel payment trends, Conferma added three new names in 2014 to the list of countries where its virtual card numbers have been used: Cuba, Haiti and Djibouti took the total to 188. “2014 saw the use of virtual card numbers become univer- sal,” declares Conferma chief executive Simon Barker.


Conferma also found that cancellation fees charged by hotels took a leap last year, from £90.31 to £98.32. “Hotels are getting a bit more bullish about what they will chase and penalise travellers for,” Barker says. Conferma figures show the average time rooms are booked before check-in has grown from 14.8 days in 2012 to 15.7 days in 2013 and 16.8 in 2014.


It makes an interesting comparison with Airplus figures, which show the


average number of days UK travel- lers bought air tickets in advance of departure was 19.4. The data suggests travel managers are proving increasingly successful in their missions to persuade travellers to book further ahead and book their hotel room at the same time as their air ticket.


Gender politics


VARIOUS REPORTS HAVE SUGGESTED female busi- ness travellers are growing rapidly in number. One story, in Buying Business Travel in 2013, estimated they account for close to half of all business travellers in the US and around 40 per cent in the UK; but the latest figures from Airplus appear to contradict this


Tickets bought


Flights in economy class Long-haul flights


Number of days booked in advance Average fare


Source: tickets paid for through Airplus BBT CORPORATE CARDS SUPPLEMENT 2015 21


view – only 14 per cent of tickets paid for through Airplus in 2014 were for female passengers.


The UK is close to the global average, at 14.2 per cent. Also in the same range are Switzerland (14.4 per cent) and the Netherlands (14.9 per cent). Germany is higher at 17 per cent, while trailing behind are France


Women 14%


90% 14% 23


e204


(10.7 per cent) and Italy (2.3 per cent). It seems women business


travellers cost less – as the figures below show, their average ticket price is con- siderably lower than for men, underlying reasons including more flights in economy class, fewer long- haul flights and booking further in advance.


Men


86% 87% 17% 17


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