Corporate travel budgets expected to rise, says new Cvent research

Seven in ten European corporate travel decision makers (CTDMs) anticipate their travel budget will increase in 2019, with 16 percent saying they expect their budget to significantly increase, according to a recent study by Cvent entitled “The European Travel Manager in 2019.” 25 percent of CTDMs said their budget would remain unchanged, while only 6 percent foresee a year-over-year decline. German CTDMs are especially optimistic about their budgets, with 21 percent expecting a significant increase in 2019. The study found that more than seven in ten (73 percent) of CTDMs across Europe say they source accommodations at least once a year, while one in five CTDMs source once every two years (in UK and Germany this increases to one in four CTDMs). This is good news for hotels vying for corporate travel business and getting ready for the 2019 sourcing season. CTDMs face challenges when it comes to how they spend those budgets which include rising hotel and airline costs (UK travel decision makers highlighted rising hotel costs as a primary issue and rising airline costs was the third biggest challenge overall and the second biggest challenge for UK travel decision makers), and the pressure to maximise the value of their travel investments. In addition, CTDMs enter the hotel sourcing process with not only concerns about price increases, but also a lack of transparency from hotels in the negotiation process, slow or incomplete responses to request for proposals (RFPs), and chain account managers (CAMs) failing to provide crucial information from the company to individual hotels. Safety and security were regarded as less of an issue compared to rising hotel/airline costs and overall value although this was more of an issue and priority for French and German CTDMs.