T&E budgets among Chinese companies grew 4.86 percent in
2016, but 61 percent of the 200 executives of Chinese companies that
participated in the CITS American Express Global Business Travel Survey,
fielded in August and September, will not increase their budgets in 2017. Still,
more than a third are looking for ways to spend smarter in order to support
travel. "The uncertainties of the current economic environment are clearly
impacting enterprises, but the majority of organizations surveyed indicated
that travel is a core business function and they will continue to invest in and
improve their managed travel programs," the report said.
More than a quarter will look for ways to increase travel to
accelerate business growth. One way may be cutting international business
travel, which decreased from 19 percent in 2015 to 15 percent this year. On the
contrary, domestic travel increased from 66 percent last year to 73 percent in
2016. (The remaining travel each year was to Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan.) The
decrease in international travel, according to the report, likely owes to:
"a sharper focus on growing business domestically as China continues to
grow, albeit at a slower rate, and a more conservative approach to business
expenses leading to fewer internal meetings abroad."
Traveler Focus
Chinese companies also are focusing more on keeping
travelers safe and improving the traveler experience. The survey showed that the
top three priorities for companies when developing a travel policy are:
employee safety, employee physical and mental well-being and traveler
productivity during and after the trip.
Among those companies that changed their policies within the
past 12 months, 57 percent implemented feeds to security providers, 47 percent
mandated that air bookings go through a certain agency and 32 percent mandated
that hotel bookings do so.
What it all adds up to is that Chinese companies
are paying more attention to the needs of their employees and travelers. More
than one-third consider their travel programs to be both key business drivers
and differentiators for their companies as employers. That's an 18 percent
increase since last year. "As competition for talent in China continues to
increase, the trend of leveraging better employee travel schemes for the
purpose of retention and recruitment is expected to increase," according
to the report.