The use of self booking tools is accelerating in Europe, according to a new survey by IT company KDS and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE).
The Online Travel Survey questioned 170 business travellers from around the world although the majority - 57% - came from Europe.
It found that 53% now used their company's self booking tools (SBTs) to book their trip while a further 13% said that they booked online using a leisure website.
Of those using company SBTs, 67% said that their experience of them was "good" or "rather good."
In total 71.6% said that they would now rather book online than the 27.2% who said they preferred to go through an agent.
The survey said the respondents came from Europe, the US, Asia and Africa, that the majority, 61% did between 10 and 20 business trips a year and that 55% worked for companies which had 5000 or more employees.
* See BTE Analysis for a fuller look at the KDS/ACTE survey.
HRG opens new centre in Hungary
Leading travel management company HRG has opened the fourth of its network of European Services Centres in Budapest.
The network already has centres in Berlin, Edinburgh and Stockholm.
A spokesman for HRG, formerly BTI, said the centres offered cross-border ticketing in various currencies as well as self booking.
The new centre in Budapest, which will be operated by HRG Hungary, is a "low cost, low contact booking option with particular expertise in facilitating simple point-to-point journeys."
'Room rates rising in Europe'
Room rates in six major European countries rose by an average of 5% last year to €96 according to a survey by Active Hotels.
The online bookings agency, part of priceline.com, said the highest rise of 9% was in Germany and the Netherlands while those in France rose by 8% and those in Spain and Italy by 7%.
Only the UK was relatively stable with a minimal rise of 0.4%.
The survey, done with its sister company Bookings, found that Italy had the highest room rate at €118, followed by the Netherlands at €100 and the UK at €98.
The lowest were Germany (€95), Spain (€89) and France (€77).
Gillian Tans, director of supply at Bookings, said: the survey confirmed that European hoteliers were seeing a "healthy recovery in their room rates."