Small businesses across the UK are wasting £175million every year by not booking their business travel through an agent – that’s according to a new study by Advantage Travel Centres.
As the credit crunch bites and SMEs are increasingly under pressure to reduce costs, the scale of wastage highlights how the simple step of handing corporate travel budgets to the experts can make a dramatic difference to a company’s bottom line.
Advantage Travel Centres’ director of business travel Norman Gage said: “The current economic situation means businesses in all sectors will be looking to make savings as we go into 2009 and beyond. But it is a fact that many cannot avoid the necessary expenditure on travel.
“It is absolutely crazy for companies to not manage their travel budget effectively. The level of wastage revealed in our calculations is simply astonishing. Any small business that is still letting its own staff book flights and hotels themselves on the internet needs to think again – hopefully these figures will be a wake-up call to SMEs across the country.”
The consortium estimates its TMC members can typically reduce companies' travel spend by 25 per cent, with flights alone often around 40 per cent cheaper.
Gage stressed Advantage business travel members were ideally placed to work within the small business sector, with their independence and knowledge of their local markets often a major selling point.
“Small businesses like the reassurance of having a local travel agent working for them, since it’s great to have someone close by who knows and appreciates their particular needs,” explained Gage.
