Online agency Expedia Corporate Travel (ECT) is planning to move into Germany as soon as it can find an agency to buy.
Christophe Pingard, ECT's chief operating officer for Europe, said the country was on its “hit list” and Expedia had been looking for a suitable agency for six months.
Mr Pingard added that ECT was also targeting the Nordic countries and Spain. “It is a question of opportunities,” he told packed forum in Brussels organised by the Association of Corporate Travel Executives and the Belgian Association of Travel Managers.
The American-owned online agency already has 1000 clients in the UK, France and Belgium including one who has an annual travel spend of $50m.
Expedia entered the European market by buying the French online agency Egencia – for which Mr Pingard previously worked - in April 2004 and the UK traditional agency World Travel Management last September.
Mr Pingard told the 120 delegates that in the US, 22% of corporate bookings were made online in 2002 but the figure for 2005 was likely to be 43%.
He predicted similar growth in Europe, first in the UK and then on the continent within five years.
Mr Pingard going online could save corporates up to 20-35% on their travel budget through lower air fares, hotel and car rental rates, increased productivity and smaller transaction fees.
He said that his company was currently targeting SMEs as online booking often appealed more to this sized company.
“You don't have to work with a GDS,” he said. “It is more and more important now to be linked to only one organisation and to have use of a tool that has access to the whole market.”