Other than reducing total costs of travel, corporate customers cited traveler satisfaction and traveler safety and security as their number two and three programme objectives for 2008 in the BCD Travel "Insight On Corporate Travel" survey.

"Reducing costs may be a priority for most travel management executives, but this is balanced by a service focus," said BCD Travel.

"Improving traveler safety and security still ranks high among travel programme priorities with 80% of respondents saying it is one of their objectives."

In fourth place was process standardisation, followed by enabling corporate mobility, regulatory compliance, sustainable procurement, and attracting and retaining talent.

When it came to managing challenges by region, corporate customers in Asia cited "data from multiple choices" as their biggest challenge. This was followed by, in descending order of importance, supplier negotiations, multiple agencies, travel security and risk management and communication with travelers.

This contracts with the global ranking of challenges which placed "rising travel costs" at the top, followed by data from multiple sources, complexity of own organization, budget management and travel policy compliance.