American Express Business Travel has reported a strong half year in Asia Pacific with new wins up 33% and sales up 36% year over year to June 2008.

Contributing to the growth of the organisation are companies that have recently signed new or extended agreements with American Express Business Travel across Asia Pacific. These include: Australia Post in Australia, Invensys in India, Emerson and Symantec in Singapore, and Kraft China.

“As a leading travel management company, our focus is to help companies optimize their travel spending – regardless of economic conditions. We are pleased that in today’s environment, businesses from across industry sectors and geographies are turning to us to provide the technology, expert insight and customer service they need to generate cost savings and maximize their business travel investment,“ commented Libby Roy, GM and VP American Express Business Travel, Japan, Asia Pacific and Australia.

Advisory Services drive $1 million of savings for clients YTD

The Advisory Services offering, which helps corporations get more from travel budgets, has experienced impressive growth and is in high demand due to the challenges of the current economic environment. To date this year, the team has worked with more than 20 clients from industries such as manufacturing, IT, financial services, resources and professional services and identified over $1 million of savings for these customers.

Expecting the growth trend to continue as companies look to drive further cost savings into their travel programs the company has recently appointed Jonas Borglin to the position of director, business development, Advisory Services, Japan, Asia Pacific and Australia. Jonas has relocated to Sydney from Sweden where he headed up the business process outsourcing group for American Express Business Travel in the Nordic region.

“Many customers we work with have focused on how to travel smarter and implement strategies to drive savings so they can keep travelers on the road. It is in this type of environment that our Advisory Services offering becomes an even more valuable resource for our customers to take advantage of,” said Libby Roy.

“Quantifiable savings can be achieved on air, hotel and meetings spend through in-depth analysis of our extensive travel data repository, benchmarking, and the specialist vendor negotiation we undertake on behalf of customers.”

Industry leading online innovations

Cementing its position as an online leader American Express Business Travel has announced plans to launch a business to business online networking community for the corporate travel industry. A first of its kind resource, BusinessTravelConnexion.com will bring together a consortium of industry decision makers, suppliers and experts in the industry’s most extensive online, community platform.

“The latest online innovation from American Express, BusinessTravelConnexion.com will grant corporations and individual travel professionals access to the wealth of information and expertise of our organisation and members of the broader business travel industry, while asking them to supplement the site’s value by contributing their own experiences,” said Libby Roy.

“With the advent of new technology we’re witnessing the business travel industry moving toward online resources and automated services and our objective with this new interactive network is to continue to revolutionise the business travel experience.”

In Singapore, the company is adding to its existing online product suite with a new online booking tool and fare loading system that will give clients quicker and easier access to the best available fares of the day.

“We have had an online booking tool in Singapore since 2003 and there is strong demand from our customers in that market for an enhanced offering. To date the industry infrastructure hasn’t supported a fully online self service booking tool which is why we have created our own to give our customers access to the most relevant and accurate online content available. We expect this enhancement to double our online usage rates by the end of 2009.”

“In more mature markets such as Australia the majority of domestic bookings are now made online. Later on in the year we will be launching an enhanced online booking tool in India.”

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About American Express Business Travel

American Express Business Travel (https://owa.text100.co.in/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.americanexpress.com/businesstravel_), a division of the American Express Company, is dedicated to helping its clients realize the greatest possible value from their investment in travel through increased cost savings, outstanding customer service and greater spend control. For small businesses, medium-sized enterprises and multinational corporations, American Express Business Travel provides a combination of industry-leading booking technology, travel management consulting expertise, strategic sourcing and supplier negotiation support, and customer service available online and offline, around the world.

American Express operates one of the world's largest travel agency networks with $26.4 billion in global travel sales in 2007.

American Express Company (https://owa.text100.co.in/exchweb/bin/redir.asp?URL=http://www.americanexpress.com/_) is a diversified worldwide travel, financial and network services company founded in 1850. It is a world leader in charge and credit cards, Travelers Cheques, travel and business services.