Company cost cuts put limits on business travelers

— -- Business travelers, like the rest of the country, are tightening their belts.

Stephen Hecht, a technical manager, recently logged online to book a room at Courtyard by Marriott in Norwood, Mass., his favorite hotel when he regularly visits a client. But the Orbitz website, tailored to follow his employer's new cost-conscious travel policy, showed the hotel was too expensive. It steered him to a cheaper property, Four Points by Sheraton. Reluctant to stay at the recommended hotel, he called a local Hampton Inn and found a cheaper room.

"It's a waste of time, something that my travel agent could have done," says Hecht, who lives in Concord, N.C., and works for a building products manufacturer. "My travel budget was cut 25% across the board."

With the economy in full swoon, more corporate travel departments are requiring cost-saving measures. Employees are increasingly pressured by travel managers to book tickets further in advance, opt for limited-service hotels, take public transportation and refrain from paying for others' meals.

To be sure, revenue-generating trips, such as meeting new clients or appeasing repeat customers, are still high priorities at many companies. But others deemed less critical — internal meetings, trade shows and training sessions — are being shelved.

In a 2008 survey of business travelers updated in December by Orbitz for Business and trade magazine Business Traveler, 79% said they're pressured to cut costs. While about 70% said they traveled as much or more in 2008 compared with 2007, only 55% anticipate that'd be the case in 2009.

In the same survey, 51% said they had scaled back on their travel in the fourth quarter of 2008 but were still traveling.

With the heightened pressure to cut costs, travel managers are also more aggressive about monitoring employee habits, often through their travel-booking sites. When employees book plane tickets or hotel rooms that are more expensive than their company policy allows, the site will ask employees for their reasons and seek manager approval.