Carlson Wagonlit Travel saw worldwide sales dip in 2012 including falls in the UK and Europe.
The company said that total global sales last year were $27.7 billion – a 1.1 per cent reduction on 2011’s record figure of $28 billion. The number of transactions also fell slightly by 0.2 per cent to 61.7 million.
The UK’s biggest TMC said that overall sales in the UK fell by 1.9 per cent to £1.175 billion compared to £1.198 billion in 2011. But this was better than the wider EMEA region where sales fell by 4.4 per cent.
CWT’s chief executive officer Doug Anderson described the UK and European performance as “strong considering the economic climate we faced in western Europe”.
“Europe was a tough environment to operate in for travel in 2012,” Anderson told BBT. “In those circumstances I’m very satisfied with our performance in the EMEA region.”
But Anderson added that there were signs of “more confidence” among companies because the eurozone crisis had “stabilised” in recent months.
“Confidence is coming back into the business sector,” he said. “Clients are loosening up the purse strings of their travel budgets – at least to some extent.
“They are realising that business travel is necessary in order to do deals and grow the top line. We are now in an atmosphere where clients are not expecting any more significant bad news. There is more willingness to spend on travel.”
Anderson added that he was “cautiously optimistic” about the prospects for the business travel market in both the UK and Europe in 2013.
CWT saw its biggest growth during 2012 in Latin America where transactions rose by 21 per cent compared to the previous year. North America also saw a rise of 2.3 per cent in bookings.
But there was a 2.4 per cent fall in transactions in the Asia Pacific region despite strong performances in China and Japan.
“We actually had underlying growth in Asia Pacific but the decline was down to our decision to walk away from a couple of contracts in the region,” said Anderson. “I think there will be strong growth in Asia Pacific in 2013.”
CWT is continuing to develop its specialist businesses such as CWT Energy Services (up 22 per cent in 2012), CWT Solutions Group (+ 17 per cent) and CWT Meetings & Events (+ 10 per cent).
“We are very focused on continuing to grow these areas,” added Anderson. “Their level of growth has far exceeded that of business travel although it is obviously a much smaller part of the business.”
Anderson said that the main priorities for CWT during 2013 would be “taking care of clients”, retention of existing customers and further meetings and events growth.
He added that CWT would look to drive further innovation in its products - particularly following CWT’s purchase last year of technology firm Worldmate.
CWT to Go powered by Worldmate will include extra tools such as travellers being able to include any travel booked through channels outside CWT, mobile booking, profile updating and the ability to change bookings while on the road. There will also be the introduction of an iPad version.
“We will be completing the migration of our CWT to Go app on to Worldmate’s platform in the next few months,” said Anderson. “This will allow the travel manager to gain more visibility and information around the transaction including any bookings made outside the TMC.”