The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) has launched a new tool to compare trends in business travel with the health of the world's economy.
The ACTE Index compares data on air, hotel and car rental bookings with global economic indices such as GDP, the consumer price index and unemployment figures.
The figures can be narrowed down by spend type – air, hotel or rail – time period and region.
Ron DiLeo, ACTE's executive director, said the tool, currently accessible free of charge, had been built “deep and wide” to allow detailed analysis.
While travel indices today only compare travel to travel, said DiLeo, the ACTE Index has been designed to show how business travel actually powers the global economy.
“The ACTE Index sheds insight on how corporate travel affects the economy, and is not just affected by it,” he said.
“It will predict how strong the travel industry is in any given month.”
The ACTE Index will help travel buyers and suppliers to make “predictive decisions”, said DiLeo “based on industry behaviour, company performance, travel spend and market forces – rather than always tracking from the rear-view mirror.”
Future improvements to the tool will also show how a travel programme of a particular company could affect its stock price, he said, but this will likely be a fee for this servcie.
The first round of additions to the ACTE Index will be seen in April.