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25.08.2023 - 14:43 / skift.com / Asia Pacific / Paul Abbott / Matthew Parsons
American Express Global Business Travel continues to benefit from the ongoing rebound of business trips. In particular the reopening of countries in Asia Pacific, barring China of course, bodes well for the world’s biggest travel agency.
In fact it’s the “highest recovered region,” primarily driven by the recovery in Australia and India, said CEO Paul Abbott during an earning’s call on Thursday.
But the recent spate of tech company layoffs must have been on his mind. In the past two weeks Twitter and Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Whatsapp, have announced widespread redundancies.
It’s making forecasting difficult, with macroeconomic headwind “difficult to size right now” it said in a separate report Thursday.
“Obviously, we recognize that the macroeconomic outlook for 2023 has become more challenging over the last few months,” Abbott said. “And frankly, it’s very difficult with the level of uncertainty that exists to predict the exact impact that this may have on business travel demand in 2023.”
The newly publicly traded corporate travel agency reported a net loss of $73 million for its third quarter, covering the three months to September 30, 2022. That’s down on the $2 million loss in the previous quarter. However, revenue continues to grow and increased 147 percent to $488 million compared to the same period in 2021, and marginally up from the $486 million in the last quarter.
Abbott also said he continued to see the upside in hybrid work, with distributed teams creating new business travel demand as companies bring their people together for training, motivation and collaboration.
The company also predicts improving airline capacity will help it grow next year, and support any increased demand.
And it remains confident it can win over smaller businesses that previously only used online travel agencies, thanks in part to its large inventory. Of its $4.1 billion of total “new wins value” over the past 12 months, $2.5 billion came from small and medium-size enterprises. Of that number, half had never used a corporate travel agency on a managed travel basis before.
Its “marketplace” certainly expanded following its acquisition of Egencia last year, which locked it into a supplier partnership with previous owner Expedia.
This may prove to be its biggest asset going into the uncertainty that awaits it in 2023.
Here are the top stories from the Daily Lodging Report newsletter in the past week. Get news on hotel deals, development, stocks, and career moves. Sign up here now.
A senior U.S. official found himself explaining to world leaders how tourism works within the U.S. government.
The boss of the world’s biggest corporate travel agency has clashed with a top European politician over the best way to lower carbon emissions.
American Express Global Business Travel has partnered with Emirates Group-owned dnata to offer its global clients more local expertise in the Middle East region.
The hotel tech startup Mews has completed five acquisitions in the past three years. Its CEO, Richard Valtr, told Skift last week that there are two more underway.
One of the best definitions of high-end hospitality I saw this year suggested: “Luxury is when the standard operating procedure isn’t showing.” This hit the nail on the head for the products and experiences that transcend good into great. The guest feels a sense of detail, thoughtful anticipation, and comfort but the gears and machinations to deliver it remains hidden.
Airfares on key corporate travel routes are expected to rise by as much as 25 percent in 2023 amid high fuel prices, a stronger U.S. dollar and labour and aircraft shortages, a forecast from American Express Global Business Travel (Amex GBT) showed.
American Express Global Business Travel is restructuring to focus on small and medium-sized companies, with layoffs expected in the first half of the year.
Much of the travel industry is continuing to recover after the pandemic and despite growing anxieties about the economy, with some metrics better than ever last year.
Cendyn, a software company that offers customer relationship management, digital marketing, and operations tools to hotels, has hired a new chief executive.
The pandemic has led to a permanent change in how we live our lives between work and the personal. No longer just a trite category called “bleisure,” the idea of blended traveling is front and center for every major travel company now. How new strategies focused on the blended traveler will emerge more clearly in 2023, as the industry recognizes the whole traveler holistically.
Both the Middle East and Europe are on track to reach their pre-pandemic levels in 2023 , according to the UN World Tourism Organization. Last year saw a stronger than expected recovery for the global tourism economy.