SARS affected us dramatically and we have been suffering from the economic recession for some time. But I am very optimistic about the recovery of corporate travel in Singapore and the Asia-Pacific region.
Prior to SARS, the region was delivering between 20 and 22 per cent increase in turnover annually for us and I am still confident we will close the year ahead of last year. Volumes were down by as much as 70 per cent during April and May. Now we are tracking at the same level as last year, and by the end of the year, we anticipate growth with some markets forecast to be 17 per cent above last year.
China is strong because of the Chinese economy, and it is pulling us out of SARS. There is a reasonable amount of business and we are 30 per cent ahead of budget, having only entered China in 2002 through a joint venture with China Air Service to create China’s first specialist business travel agency. We are waiting for the opportunity to move forward with a special kind of licence related to ticketing, available only this year.
Although in recession, there are opportunities for us in Japan to offer data gathering services and to help corporations manage their money and businesses. The most significant progress in 2000 in growing our presence in Asia-Pacific was the creation of a joint venture company in Japan with JTB: JTB-CWT Business Travel Solutions. Consultation is becoming increasingly important to Japanese corporations and they are adopting the same platform for travel. Many corporations realised that handling travel in-house was not their core business and have outsourced it.
Singapore is becoming the location of choice for multinational companies, and the market is ready and looking to grow.
There is greater awareness in the US and when large corporations realise their executives have to travel to areas with problems, corporations have to decide if they are going to force them to travel.
What travel management companies can do is to provide the systems to track their executives and give them the assurance that help is on hand.
