Barclaycard Business Reveals Budget Airlines Benefiting from Business Travel

Released on: September 23, 2008, 9:36 am

Press Release Author: Barclaycard Business

Industry: Financial

Press Release Summary: According to the latest annual Barclaycard Business Travel Survey cost conscious businesses travellers are driving budget airline sales

Press Release Body: According to the latest annual Barclaycard Business Travel Survey, increasingly cost conscious UK business travellers are opting for no-frills airlines over traditional carries as they seek to maintain current levels of business travel in a bid to grow their businesses. Rail travel has also increased with a quarter of respondents (26%) claiming to have travelled by rail more than in previous years.

The newly released Barclaycard Business Travel Survey, now in its 12th year, canvasses the views of more than 3,000 business travellers across the country, building a comprehensive picture of the UK’s business traveller, gauging views on business travel and travel behaviour.

These current Barclaycard results show that 64% of business travellers have flown internationally on business in the last 12 months with 12% of respondents claiming to have flown on an international flight more than 11 times. This breaks down to an average of eight international flights per traveller in 2007. Domestic flights are less popular however, with only 43% claiming to have flown domestically in the last year. On average the business traveller takes six domestic flights a year. Only a few (4%) flew more than twenty times internationally (4%), while 5% flew more than ten times
domestically.

While British Airways remains the most used airline for business travel (28%) both easyJet (ranked 2nd) and Ryanair (ranked 3rd) have increased their market share. British Airways has for the seventh year running retained its status as the business traveller’s favourite business travel airline as voted by almost a third (28%) of the business travellers surveyed.

When selecting a class of travel, 44% of respondents cited cost as the overriding purchasing decision factor, with 17% claiming class is dictated by company policy, 12% by length of flight and only 7% down to personal preference. Despite the heavy investment of some airlines in premium economy products, standard economy is the most popular class with more than half (55%) of respondents claiming to use it the most often, an increase of nine percentage points from last year’s survey.

Denise Leleux, Director of Commercial Cards, Barclaycard Business said: "Our latest survey shows that business travel numbers continue to climb as businesses seek economic growth however travellers appear to be downshifting to economy class travel as they attempt to maximize increasingly pressured business travel budgets. "

The 12th annual Barclaycard Business Travel Survey was conducted in December 2007, amongst a nationwide sample of Barclaycard Business commercial card holders. A total of 3397 respondents (CEOs, chairmen, company directors, managers and executives) provided their thoughts on all aspects of business travel including airlines and hotels preferences to online bookings. Keeping in line with key public interests and new industry developments, this year saw the introduction of a new subject area, the environment, and also the continuation of two topics introduced in last year’s survey - security and advanced travel technology.

- Ends -

Notes to Editors

About Barclaycard Business
Barclaycard Business is Europe’s Number 1 issuer of Visa Commercial Cards with approximately 145,000 corporate customers, and almost 600,000 cardholders. It services businesses of all sizes from multi-national companies and Government departments to small and medium enterprises. Barclaycard Business commercial cards are welcome at more than 27 million outlets* and 1m ATMs* worldwide.

Barclaycard Business is also one of Europe’s largest acquirers and processors of card transactions, with over 93,000 retailer and business relationships. In September 2007, Barclaycard Business launched its contactless technology, OneTouch, and became the first company to go live with a contactless terminal in the UK. It is now the leading provider of contactless technology in the card acquiring market and recently won Best Technology Initiative and Best Industry Innovation for OneTouch at the Card Awards 2008.

In 2007, more than 3 billion purchases were made with credit and debit cards through 200,000 Barclaycard Business’ customer outlets in the UK.

* Source: Feedback from Visa merchant services customers

Web Site: http://www.barclaycardbusiness.co.uk/

Contact Details: Andrew Bond
Barclaycard
PR Manager
1234 Pavilion Drive
Northampton
UK
NN4 7SG
01604 251229
http://www.barclaycardbusiness.co.uk/