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Staff benefiting from business travel growth, says GTMC

The healthy state of UK business travel has brought enhanced benefits for staff in the past year as travel management companies (TMCs) seek to recruit and retain employees.


A survey by the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) found 90% of its members offered childcare vouchers in 2011, up from 76% in 2010. The same proportion offered season ticket loans, up from 80% a year earlier.


One in three members (32%) offered enhanced maternity and paternity pay, up from one in ten in 2010.


The GTMC’s 34 members account for about 80% of business travel spending in the UK and made more than 11 million transactions last year.


The annual employee benefits survey found flexible benefit schemes – such as private medical insurance, pension contributions and dental and eye care – were on offer from 42% of members, compared with 20% in the previous year.


Three out of five members paid incentives to staff who helped bring in new recruits – up from 48% in 2010 – and 70% offered study packages in 2011 compared with 58% the year before.


The sole area in which the GTMC reported a decline in benefits was in sabbatical leave. This was on offer from 50% of members, down from 70% in 2010, reflecting the increased volume of work in the past year.


GTMC chief executive Anne Godfrey said: “Members have been telling me they are recruiting again, but that there is a dire shortage of experienced personnel in the job market.


“The survey appears to collaborate this, with improved benefits packages offered as an incentive to join a company or stay with it.”

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