Meetings and event management are becoming increasingly important to travel manager, the new AirPlus international study has found.
Nearly 44% of the 1000 travel managers questioned said they expected event management to fall within their responsibility.
The figure was more pronounced for travel managers in the UK and the US.
The survey, published this week in German only, found that 38% of travel managers in Germany expected this part of their role to increase. The figure for last year's survey was 15%.
More generally the survey, conducted in nine European countries and the US, found that 58% of travel managers expected a larger number of business trips in 2008 compared with this year.
This compares with the 2007 which found that only 48% expected to organise more trips.
One new finding was that after the main target of reducing spending, 70% of travel managers in the ten countries said that improving internal processes was the second most important aim.
But only 14% of businesses said they used electronic processes while a further 37% said they hoped to do so.
Only in Switzerland and Austria did travel managers want to continue to work on paper.
The survey found that savings made through negotiating corporate rates were around 16%.
Compared with 2007, more companies were negotiating rates.
There was a 10% increase in negotiated rates with hotels, 6% with car rental companies and 8% with providers of MICE services.
But for the first time, AirPlus found that fewer companies (4%) had negotiated deals with airlines.
The full AirPlus survey will be available in English in the New Year.
* new jobs on BTE's recruitment site www.businesstravelplus.com