What Travel Managers Earn Total Compensation as of Jan. 1, 1998
1990	$35,000
1992	$38,700 (+11%)
1994	$41,700 (+8%)
1996	$48,200 (+16%)
1998	$57,700 (+20%)

• East Coast Leads
• Bonuses Spur The High Earners
• Salaries Head For The Skies
• How Buyers' Pay Stacks Up
• A Full Plate
• Senior Support
• Opportunity Knocks
• Who's Boss?
• Is Your Salary High Enough?
• The Grass Is Greener
• A Glass Ceiling
• What, Me Worry?
• Do It And Sell It Right

Ask the travel professionals who lived through it, though, and they'll say they deserved every penny. Nineteen ninety-eight was a year of soaring travel costs and an impossibly tight airline-seat and hotel-room market, which focused the attention of not just travelers, but all company executives, on the work of the travel department. It was a year of widespread corporate acceptance of concepts like consolidated buying, outsourcing of non-core functions and using technology to streamline internal processes. It was a year of global mergers, where unprecedented international travel costs came under the scrutiny of new sets of CFO eyes. It was the year that the great mass of travel agency contracts switched from rebates to fees.

As a result, it also was a year in which those with real expertise in travel management could make a significant difference in their companies' bottom lines--perhaps a more significant one than ever before. They reaped the rewards of that skill, too. Where 18 percent of travel buyers earned $70,000 or more in 1997, this year that number rose to 26 percent of all travel buyers, and 33 percent of those who are travel managers by title. Salaries of 80 percent of our respondents rose--and 18 percent saw their pay increase by 10 percent or more. Almost three-fourths said the profession offers more opportunity than it did two years ago, and 60 percent said senior management recognizes their contribution more than in the past.

To better quantify exactly who makes how much for doing what, BTN separated the data into two categories this year. The first includes all travel and meeting buyers who responded, no matter what their exact title, and even if travel purchasing is only a part of their job. We refer to them as "travel buyers." The second group includes only those whose full-time title is travel manager, travel supervisor, travel vice president or travel director. We refer to them in the copy and charts as "travel managers." Our total base of 603 respondents included 325 travel managers by this definition.

The 603 respondents included, in all, 424 women (70 percent) and 179 men (30 percent). The average respondent was 45.6 years of age, had 10.7 years experience in travel management, including 7.5 years with her current employer, booked $10.2 million in air tickets a year and spent 56 percent of her time managing travel, though many also manage meetings, fleet and/or accounting.

We hope the data provided here offer insights into what others are doing, how much they are earning--and what you can do to raise your own salary in time for next year's survey.

Who Gets What Mean Salaries Of Travel Buyers
Travel buyers by function*	$57,000
Travel managers by title**	$63,200
Males	$73,500
Females	$58,200
West	$65,700
East	$70,300
Central	$52,700
* Includes all corporate travel and meeting buyers regardless of title ** Includes only those with travel manager, travel supervisor, travel director or travel management vice president

East Coast Leads

Looking for a ticket to easy street? It helps to be a manager--and to be a man living in the East. Travel managers and vice presidents based along the Atlantic earn $5,500 a year--fully 10 percent--more than other travel professionals, and men earn a whopping 26 percent more than women. Geography also counts: Eastern jobs are the highest paying, and Western travel managers willing to relocate there could up their paychecks by an average 7 percent. The Central states lag, with salaries only three-fourths of what they are in the East.

Can You Earn A Bonus?
	All Travel Buyers	Travel Managers/VPs
Yes	35.5%	38.4%
No	64.5%	61.6%
If Yes, What Are The Criteria?
Cost savings/avoidance		49%
Contribution to company value		37%
Year-over-year statistical improvement		33%
Formula that includes savings, service, initiative		32%
Traveler satisfaction		27%

Bonuses Spur The High Earners

About 36 percent of all travel buyers, and 38 percent of travel managers, receive a bonus. That's a growing trend, it seems, with the number up from 33 percent last year. The East Coast, where 46 percent of travel managers get a bonus, is more enamored of the incentive than the West, where only 28 percent do. Across the country, though, the higher your salary, the more apt it is to have a bonus included. Three-fourths of travel managers earning more than $90,000 get a bonus, while only 52 percent of those earning $70-89,000, and 26 percent of those earning $50-69,000, do. Almost half (49 percent) of all bonuses are based on cost savings, 37 percent incentivize a bottom-line contribution to the company's value and 33 percent look at improvement in statistics in general. Formulas that include service as well as other criteria yield an extra check for 32 percent of travel buyers, and 27 percent are rated on keeping travelers satisfied.

What Happened To Your Salary Last Year?
	All Travel Buyers	Travel Managers/VPs
Increased	80.4%	82.4%
Decreased	4.2%	3.8%
Stayed the same	15.4%	13.8%
If It Increased, By How Much?
	All Travel Buyers	Travel Managers/VPs
10% or more	13.9%	18.1%
7-9.9%	10.9%	10.8%
5-6.9%	22%	21.6%
3-4.9%	38%	37.1%
Less than 3%	15.4%	12.4%
Mean	5.6%	5.9%

Salaries Head For The Skies

Salaries definitely headed upwards this year, with 80 percent of all travel buyers, and 82 percent of travel managers, reporting salary increases. That's even better than last year, when 73 percent of the total saw their personal bottom line rise.

Ah, but life is not always fair. Those reporting the best results were in the already-well-paid $70-89,000 bracket, where fully 91 percent of respondents reported higher take-home pay--while only 56 percent in the lowest-paid group, making under $30,000, saw a raise. The high end also had the biggest increases: Buyers earning more than $90,000 got an average raise of 7.2 percent, and 36 percent got 10 percent or more. Next came the $70-89,000 group, where 16 percent got 10 percent or more, and the average was 5.7 percent.

Overall, geography had little effect, with the percentages virtually identical across all areas of the country. But the highest percentage of travel buyers getting raises over 10 percent was in the West (20 percent), and the lowest was in the Central states (6.5 percent).

For full-fledged travel managers, raises were not only more prevalent, but bigger than last year too. Fully 18 percent reported raises of more than 10 percent, and only one in eight travel managers (12 percent) got less than 3 percent. The average for travel managers was 5.9 percent; the average for all travel buyers was 5.6 percent.

What Travel Buyers Earned In Salary, Bonuses And Incentives As Of Jan. 1
	1998 Travel Managers	1998 Travel Buyers	1997 Travel Buyers
Under $30,000	5.6%	11.2%	16.7%
$30-39,999	10.0%	20.4%	22.1%
$40-49,999	18.8%	16.8%	18.6%
$50-59,999	17.2%	13.8%	14.6%
$60-69,999	15.4%	11.9%	9.8%
$70-79,999	12.9%	9.5%	18.2% ($70,000+)
$80-89,999	9.4%	7.1%
$90,000 or more	10.6%	9.3%

How Buyers' Pay Stacks Up

The trend is clearly headed up, with both travel buyers and travel managers seeing pay increases--and those in the middle range of salaries, between $30,000 and $70,000, getting the steepest raises. The number of travel buyers earning less than $30,000 is down a third from just last year, while the number earning more than $70,000 is up 42 percent, to more than a fourth of the total. Among travel managers, fully 32 percent earn more than $70,000. In addition, the number of travel buyers earning less than $50,000 fell 16 percent, from 57.4 percent of the total to 48.4 percent. At the high end, 35 men and 20 women--more than twice as many of them based in the East than in the western and the central states combined--earned more than $90,000; five men and one woman earned more than $150,000.

What Do Senior Travel Managers Do?
Areas of responsibility	Manage now	Involved but don't manage	Expect to manage by 2000
Air travel	93%	6%	0%
Hotels	90%	9%	0%
Car rental	89%	10%	0%
Travel agency selection, supervision	85%	12%	2%
Ground transportation	72%	20%	4%
Travel mgmt. reporting system	75%	17%	6%
Electronic ticketing	73%	12%	10%
Rail	73%	20%	4%
T&E; charge card	64%	25%	7%
CRS selection	63%	20%	5%
Meeting planning	52%	31%	7%
Internet travel site	52%	12%	26%
Online booking system	47%	11%	32%
Leisure travel for employees	52%	26%	8%
Supervising travel accounting staff	44%	24%	11%
Incentive planning	31%	32%	12%
Car fleet/leasing	31%	25%	14%
Electronic expense reporting	25%	37%	22%
Telephone cards	26%	35%	14%
Housing and relocation	26%	41%	9%
Business aircraft	29%	24%	10%
Procurement cards	22%	34%	18%
Parking/garages	23%	25%	16%
Cellular phone contracts	16%	33%	15%
Laptop computers	10%	29%	14%

A Full Plate

When you say "travel management," you think air, hotel and car rental programs and the data they generate--but more than half of senior travel managers also are responsible for handling ground transportation, rail, corporate cards, meeting planning, online travel sites and leisure travel programs for employees.

Asked for the first time whether they are responsible for CRS selection, a notable 63 percent of respondents to this year's survey said they are, 20 percent said they are involved in the decision and 5 percent said they expect to take on responsibility for CRS contracts within the next two years.

Also high on the list of travel management responsibilities are the selection of online booking systems (cited by 47 percent) and supervising travel accounting staffers (44 percent). More than 30 percent said they are part of teams managing housing and relocation, electronic expense reporting, procurement cards, cell phones and travel incentive programs.

The hottest future prospects for travel managers looking for new responsibilities are technology-oriented. Forty-two percent of respondents expect within two years to be responsible for online booking systems, and 26 percent expect to head development of intranet travel sites.

What Factors Contributed Most To Increasing Opportunity?
85%	More attention to travel management by senior corporate management
74%	Advancing travel technology that requires expertise
68%	Increasingly sophisticated negotiations
56%	Greater expenditures on travel
56%	Greater demands of industry due to fee-based pricing, direct connections
48%	Globalization
33%	More travel reporting to finance
What Factors Contributed To Lessening Opportunities?
67%	Corporate trend toward outsourcing
44%	Consolidation of travel at headquarters location
44%	Mature travel program offers less opportunity for savings

Senior Support

Travel managers of every sex and salary range cited the attention of senior management to travel as the leading cause of their optimism--including 96 percent of those earning more than $90,000. The highest earners also were most likely to credit travel technology and globalization with boosting their profiles.

While a few clouds remain--the most worrisome being the trend toward corporate downsizing--there were only 27 pessimists in the bunch.

Positive Outlook How Much Opportunity Do You Feel Travel Management Offers Today Vs. Two Years Ago?
	1998	1996
Much greater	24.8%	18.2%
Somewhat greater	47.4%	39.8%
No change	19.5%	27.0%
Somewhat less	7.1%	12.8%
Much less	1.2%	2.2%

Opportunity Knocks

With all their ducks in a row this year, travel buyers are extremely optimistic about the future of their profession. Fully 72 percent said opportunities for travel managers have improved over the past two years, compared with 58 percent in 1996 and 63 percent in 1997. Only 8 percent see less sunny skies ahead--a figure notably lower than the 15 percent who worried about the future in 1996 or the 14 percent who did in 1997.

To Whom Do You Report?
All Travel Buyers
Finance	32%
Administration	29%
Purchasing	9%
H.R.	9%
Operations	8%
Other	21%
Travel Managers/VPs
Finance	41%
Administration	22%
Purchasing	13%
H.R.	12%
Operations	8%
Other	14%

Who's Boss?

Most travel professionals report to either finance (32 percent) or administration (29 percent), with other large groups also in purchasing, human resources and operations. Five percent report directly to the company CEO, president or owner. Those at the high end of the salary curve tend to report to finance, while the lower echelons report to administration. While 44 percent of high earners sit in finance and 24 percent sit in administration, for example, almost the exact reverse (27 and 40 percent, respectively) is true for those earning under $30,000. Among travel managers, 41 percent report to finance and 22 percent report to administration.

Do You Feel Adequately Compensated?
	All Travel Buyers	Travel Managers	Men	Women	Under $30K	Over $90K
Yes	51%	56%	62%	46%	27%	89%
No	49%	44%	38%	54%	73%	11%

Is Your Salary High Enough?

Even as salaries headed upwards, the number of travel managers who felt adequately compensated for their contribution to the company fell slightly over the past year, from 53 percent in 1997 to 51 percent this year.

Not surprisingly, though, the higher the take-home pay, the more travel professionals felt they were fairly compensated for their efforts. Travel managers and vice presidents, men and those earning over $90,000 were more apt to feel satisfied with their compensation (56, 62 and 89 percent, respectively) than travel buyers in general.

How likely are you to consider a job change compared with two years ago?
	1998	1996
Much more likely	24.8%	18.2%
Somewhat more likely	47.4%	39.8%
The same	19.5%	27.0%
Somewhat less likely	7.1%	12.8%
Much less likely	1.2%	2.2%
What factors would make you change?
	All	$30,000-39,999	Over $90,000
More money	36%	59%	17%
More challenging work	20%	13%	43%
More job security	16%	19%	29%
Better prospects for advancement	15%	16%	5%
Geographic location	13%	15%	0%
Larger program to manage	78%	5%	12%

The Grass Is Greener

Given the optimism the travel management profession is enjoying, it's not surprising that the number of travel buyers considering new options has risen. More than half of respondents to the survey (52 percent) are somewhat or much more likely to change jobs this year than they were in the past, compared with 38 percent in 1997--and the goal of earning more money heads the list of reasons. A third of all respondents, and more than half of those earning less than $40,000, would consider a change that offered higher pay. Travel buyers already earning over $90,000 have other priorities, though. For them, the lure of more challenging work or greater job security is more pressing than money.

Go East, Young Man
	Male	Female	West	East	Central
Earn $90,000 or more	19%	7%	9%	16%	5%
Earn $40,000-89,999	72%	74%	85%	74%	67%
Earn $39,999 or less	9%	19%	6%	10%	28%

A Glass Ceiling

There is real parity between the sexes in the middle salary ranges, where about the same percentages of men and women earn $40,000 to $90,000. But it stops at the edges of the bell curve: 19 percent of male and just 7 percent of females earn over $90,000, while 19 percent of females and 9 percent of males earn less than $40,000.

What Are Your Top Career Concerns?
	All Travel Buyers	Earning under $30,000	Earning $70-89,000	Earning over $90,000
Opportunities for advancement	20%	20%	15%	29%
Stress/workload	15%	9%	19%	20%
Job security	16%	18%	17%	9%
Salary	14%	17%	4%	6%
Senior mgmt. support	13%	7%	14%	19%
Pace of industry change	13%	9%	12%	21%
Age discrimination	9%	5%	14%	7%
Education/training	8%	11%	3%	6%
Technology training	6%	5%	11%	0%
Image of profession	5%	7%	10%	3%
Ethics	5%	8%	10%	13%
Sex/race discrimination	5%	16%	3%	7%

What, Me Worry?

In an interesting switch from past surveys, the issue of advancement opportunities moved up two places, to top the list of concerns of every group but the $70-89,000 earners. For the majority, worry about where they will go from here supplanted the traditional concerns about the work load and the lack of support from senior management, perhaps because that support has increased.

Concerns over job security, an issue for 31 percent of respondents in the 1994 survey, remained flat at 16 percent for the second year. Questions of professional ethics, falling slightly from 7 percent last year to 5 this time, nonetheless were more of an issue at the higher income levels, where ethics were cited by 10 and 13 percent, respectively, of travel buyers earning $70-89,000 and $90,000+.

What Was The Most Effective Step You Took To Improve Your Compensation Last Year?
Improved performance in existing position	35%
Communicated more effectively with senior management	29%
Took on global responsibilities	9%
Took on supervisory responsibilities	9%
Took on meetings responsibilities	8%
Adhered to budget	6%

Do It And Sell It Right

Travel managers looking for the path upward should focus, it seems, on improving their performance in their current position, the one thing credited most often by those getting a raise (35 percent). Almost as important is grabbing the attention of senior management, cited by 29 percent of all travel buyers--and the number-one step cited by women (36 percent).