Carlson Wagonlit Travel is predicting a tough year ahead for business travel but says there are no plans for redundancies in the UK.
Speaking at the Business Travel Show in London this week, president and CEO Douglas Anderson said instead the travel management company would control its headcount through natural attrition.
“There is no major redundancy programme and our budget for 09 is set at a level that we believe to be deliverable and won’t require any redundancies,” said Anderson.
“We have a high degree of flexibility in terms of our fixed contracts, and can decide not to replace positions that become open, in order to keep our headcount in line with transaction levels.”
He said CWT was actually hiring in parts of the UK, including Scotland.
In 2008, UK sales increased 7% to £1.1bn, including £145m in new sales.
But Anderson added: “When you see overall UK BSP transactions in January are down 30%, there is clearly a dramatic softening in this market.
“Our own figures are nowhere near as bad as that. Although I do not have exact figures for the UK, we only saw mid, single digit decline across Europe.”
By Bev Fearis
