Best Places to Stay Survey: Clients Keep Pressure on Travel Expenses

Consultants continue to feel micro-managed when it comes to how they travel for business, according to a recent survey of nearly 100 consultants.

| July 09, 2010

Hotel Flight Rental Car Consultants continue to feel micro-managed when it comes to how they travel for business, according to a recent Consulting magazine survey of nearly 100 consultants. The good news is that most clients are not asking consultants to make changes to their typical travel expenses (so say 60 percent of respondents; up from 51 percent in 2009), according to Consulting 's annual Best Places to Stay survey. And, compared to last year, fewer consultants report that clients are:

  • Negotiating travel expense limits (down to 21 percent vs. 31 percent in 2009)
  • Requesting they travel less (down to 14 percent in 2010 vs. 22 percent in 2009)
  • Requiring they spend less on travel (down to 13 percent, from 20 percent in 2009)

However, an increasing share of consultants reports that clients are "more aggressively reviewing" their travel expenses (18 percent in 2010 vs. 13 percent in 2009). In other words, while the push back may not be getting worse, clients are maintaining the price controls on travel that were implemented during the heart of the downturn in 2009.

As previously reported, the other good news is that consultants are traveling less than they used to. The average consultant is on pace to travel about 88 days in 2010, down from 91 days in 2009 and 99 days in 2008, according to Consulting 's survey.

Pulling Suitcase up hill There are a number of reasons for this trend: 1) a dampening in demand requires less travel; 2) projects are getting smaller, requiring fewer nights away from home to complete the job; 3) consultants are pursuing more local clients; 4) clients and consultants are becoming increasingly comfortable doing more and more of the assignment off site. While we see no signs of a return to the high-travel days experienced at the end of the last decade, only time will tell if travel will pick up as demand improves.

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