It was an optimistic view of business travel that Hubert Joly presented at the international press briefing in Minneapolis this week.
The president and ceo of Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) said air traffic was growing by about 6% a year and while economic activity and therefore travel were sensitive to GDP growth, there was a "continuous and accelerating trend" in business travel around the world. "It seems to be here to stay," he said. "Three years ago people were asking if there was a role for the travel agents and did they have a future. Now there is no doubt about that. This is a growing business."
There were problems. Sourcing is one, business travel being a complex industry to source and the increasing preference of airlines ands hotels for yield management was exacerbating this difficulty.
Another is hotels. There were still companies where fewer than 50% of hotels were booked through its travel management programme. Many hotel negotiations were done at property level and the behaviour of staff could be "erratic" like asking colleagues at their destination to book them a hotel.
It meant that some companies, anxious for more control over hotel spend, were now mandating the use of their hotel programmes.
The meetings and events spend also had still to be consolidated into the transient spend but "there will be a day when this is done."
But mostly Mr Joly pointed to positive trends or put an optimistic gloss on changes affecting the industry over the past three years or so.
One of the key trends he identified was global consolidation of travel policy and spend. It was clear he said that "key corporates were concentrating on consolidating around the globe."
Referring to CWT's research paper published this March, Global Horizons: Consolidating a Travel Program, Mr Joly said savings of up to 20% could be made on spend. Standardisation of policy and processes brought 12% savings, concentrated sourcing of suppliers brought 7% and standardised booking and fulfillment brought 1%.
Another major trend was the move to online booking. "A few years ago we squarely positioned ourselves as leader of online booking. We don't see it as a threat and have taken the initiative to grow this side of our business," he said.
He pointed to figures which showed a continuing rise in online bookings. In America they had risen from 37% of transactions in 2004 to 50% in 2006. (This figure when incorporating the online bookings of its acquisition Navigant dropped to 29%).
In Europe they had grown from about 4% in 2004 to around 8% in 2006 while in Australia they had risen from 6% in 2004 to 20% in 2006.
The respective rise in each of the three areas was 19%, 80% and 70%.
"Europe is moving more slowly than I would have anticipated," Mr Joly said. "But you are never going to get 100% of bookings done on line, rather a plateau of potentially 50-60%.
"But online does not by-pass our business. It is a way of increasing the efficiency of the transactions."
Mr Joly also dismissed the threat from the online agencies like Travelocity Business, Orbitz and Expedia Corporate Travel, saying they had only captured 1% of the market and would take a long time to penetrate it.
But Mr Joly also made clear there was another avenue which CWT was about to go down: traveller satisfaction.
He had dropped a hint about this at the National Business Travel Association forum on finance in New York in March when he said that the focus for the next three to five years must be on the traveller. He cited the time often wasted at airports as an example of the traveller's unhappy lot.
In Minneapolis he put more flesh on his statement: "There is a feeling around that with all the concentration on processes and cutting costs, the traveller has been neglected.
"It is arguable that the condition of the traveller, for example through the extra security at airports, has deteriorated in the last five years. The industry had swung too far to the processes and the traveller is being neglected. Don't forget without the traveller there would be no travel."
It was a point echoed by Marilyn Carlson Nelson, chairman and ceo of the Carlson Group who said there had to be a balance between the commercial interests of the company and the well being of the traveller.
A raft of new, traveller-friendly services will be launched in July by CWT to meet this aim.
There was also a prediction by Mr Joly of more consolidation. CWT had doubled in size since 2003 but two thirds of this was from acquisitions while only one third was from organic growth.
"This business remains incredibly fragmented. The top four (American Express, CWT, BCD and HRG) have only 25% of global business. I predict more consolidation," he said.
* see BTE's recruitment site www.businesstraveljobs.com