financial excesses

SPOTLIGHT
year was a difficult one for
many businesses. But when
things start to pick up, the
reins must be loosened a little.
The VDR’s members are
not economising quite so rigorously
any more, with only
eleven percent axing all trips
that are not absolutely necessary.
So in many companies
business travel is on the
agenda once more – which
makes sense from a business
perspective. After all,
business travel is instrumental
in building up and strengthening
business relations
and boosting revenues.
TW: A third of corporate business
travel is related to conferences
and events and in
the association sector fully
two-thirds. What areas have
been hardest hit by the cutbacks
in business trips?
Biehl: Companies naturally
have smaller budgets available
for their events. For the
time being I do not expect
the funds set aside for this to
be increased in 2010 either.
Some German and international
firms have already reduced
the number and duration
of their business trips,
both promotable travel (for
trade shows, meetings and
congresses) and traditional
trips. However, cutbacks in
the event sector do not
come first when travel restrictions
have to be put into
practice. The VDR’s busi-
”Cutbacks in
business travel”
ness travel analysis has
shown that economies on
trade show appearances,
customer events and the like
are only the fourth most frequent
measure, after reductions
in the volume of travel,
virtual conferences and
tightening up travel guidelines.
TW: Are business trips also
tending to become shorter
in Germany?
Biehl: Especially in a
downswing it is important to
cultivate existing contacts
and create new leads. But
each trip must be assessed
on its own merits: is personal
contact important in this
case, or can the meeting be
held in the form of a conference
call or a video conference?
Those who opt to travel
will of course try to combine
several appointments
or to shorten the trip to save
on accommodation costs.
But we must not lose sight
of what can reasonably be
expected of the traveller. It is
doubtful whether a negotiation
will go well if the business
traveller has had to get
up at 3 o’clock in the night to
arrive on time for the appointment.
TW: Is there any indication
that companies are tightening
up their travel guidelines
even further to cut costs?
Biehl: The crisis has made
greater demands of travel
managers to seek out latent
savings potential. They have
become more professional
in their organisation as they
recognise how important
meticulous planning and
analysis is to optimise business
travel as a cost item
over the long term. The
economies have been accepted
at board level and by
business travellers. Further
stringency will not be necessary
– whereas maintaining
the status quo or indeed relaxation
in certain areas
would certainly not be misplaced.
One of the biggest
challenges that travel managers
now face is to give
comprehensive consideration
to the costs a business
trip entails – to develop
transparency in their business
and to preserve it.
When the going gets tough,
management’s demands to
calculate the value of a trip
become more insistent than
ever. But we don’t yet have a
formula to calculate the
overall cost of a trip and then,
on the basis of this, to deduce
upfront with any certainty
the benefits that it can
be expected to yield.
TW: Is the substitution of
business travel by video,
web and telephone conferencing
on the increase?
Biehl: The intelligent avoidance
of travel is a part of professional
travel management.
Web, video and phone
conferencing certainly seem
to be a suitable way of cutting
travel costs. A third of
the VDR member companies
surveyed are now using
these technologies as a substitute
for business trips. Another
twenty percent are
pursuing this cutting-edge
trend for other reasons, such
as improving communication
within the company.
Interview: Dirk Mewis
24 2/2010
© Thorsten Freyer/www.pixelio.de