Global business travel giant Carlson Wagonlit Travel recorded new business sales of $1.6 billion last year.
Overall sales increased by 1.6% cent to $27.3 billion, reflecting the continuing “variable” global economic climate. The number of transactions managed by CWT rose by 3.3% to 62.3 million.
Transactions in the Asia Pacific region were up by 5% year-on-year, enhanced by operations in China and Japan. North American transactions increased by 6.3% and Latin America by 3.3% year on year, despite soft performance in Brazil.
A drop of 0.8% was recorded in Europe, the Middle East and Africa, reflecting the “delicate economic climate” throughout the region in 2014.
CWT’s client satisfaction scores showed a 99.46% client retention rate in the UK and Ireland and 97% globally, combined with 87% travel manager satisfaction rate and an 88% satisfaction rating from travellers.
Last year also saw 345,000 user registrations for the CWT To Go app.
CWT’s meetings and events division organised more than 33,000 meetings and events around the world for over 1.3 million delegates, an increase of 4.2%. Global client wins offset a reduced event spend in Europe, a reflection of the economic situation in the region.
President and chief executive Douglas Anderson said: “We believe one of the most significant figures in our annual results is our client retention rate, which remained strong at 97%.
“This figure highlights our ongoing drive to support our clients in running cost effective travel programmes and supporting travellers at every point of their journey.
“We will deliver significant new developments around our products and services, including the upcoming new data reporting tool, CWT AnalytIQs, which will be a major milestone in the year ahead.”
He added: “We saw positive growth and developments for CWT in 2014, as we continued to focus on driving savings for our clients and enhancing our mobile technology for travellers on the go.
Last year, we transformed CWT To Go from what was an itinerary management application to a travel application with the introduction of hotel booking and profile management.
“We helped bring door-to-door booking capability into the North American market and we created our dedicated innovation team, who will concentrate on the innovative partnerships, technology and products that we expect to drive our company in the future.”