Railway and Airfare spending record highest rise by Indian businesses globally
ETW STAFF – Mumbai
Concur has released its third annual global report on corporate travel and entertainment (T&E) spend. The report analyses more than US$ 50 billion in corporate travel and entertainment (T&E) spend. Leveraging expense data generated by its more than 18,000 corporate clients, this report provides businesses and travel managers with unique insight to help inform their travel and expense programmes, enabling organisations to make more informed decisions.
The spend data was analysed for nine nations worldwide, including the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Australia and India. To augment the analysis, Concur asked IDC, the premier global market intelligence firm, to give additional insight on the data. Their insights provide important context for the numbers, to give an even more complete picture of the global T&E environment.
India’s data threw up some interesting facts based on the analysis. The rupee declined 12.4 per cent against the dollar from 2011 to 2012. Accounting for this change in exchange rates, India saw an 18 per cent increase in the average airfare transaction, which is the highest recorded increase globally. Rail costs also increased greatly – nearly 58 per cent, which is the highest recorded increase across the US, UK, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan and Australia. Surprisingly, the average gas transaction declined 4.2 per cent suggesting that rising fuel costs were not the only factor behind the higher airfare and rail amounts
Bengaluru once again emerged as the most visited city in India for business travel ranked at no. 12 in the 25 most visited cities followed by Mumbai ranked at 20 in terms of number of overnight hotel stays. Bengaluru dropped from rank 11 in 2011 to 12 in 2012 with the average spend also dropping from around US$ 258 to around US$ 227 for categories of lodging, ground transport, dining, entertainment. On the other hand Mumbai maintained its position at rank 20, however, total average spend dropped from approximately US$ 255 to approximately US$ 238. However, in terms of average transaction amount, Bengaluru stood last at no 25 with US$ 227.83 and Mumbai at no 23 with US$ 238.37. The above average transaction amount has fallen in 2012 as compared to 2011 for both cities with Bengaluru declining from US$ 258.7 in 2011 to US$ 227.83 in 2012 and Mumbai declining from $255.18 in 2011 to $238.37 – it is important to note here that though the spending in dollar terms has declined, the actual spending in rupees may have actually increased owing to the 12.4 per cent decline of the rupee in the said period.
The average percentage spend on lodging (31 per cent) was the highest in India as compared to other APAC countries like Japan (23 per cent), Hong Kong (25 per cent) and Australia (14 per cent). India ranked the lowest in average entertainment spend at 2.44 per cent and the highest being 8.14 per cent in Japan.
