With corporate travel demand flying high, strong supplier markets and a comparatively bright outlook for the global economy, corporate travel managers are in demand in 2015. The 32nd annual BTNTravel Manager Salary & Attitude Survey showed travel management salaries
up 5 percent across the board, with 54 percent of survey respondents saying they have at least fair exchange pay for their responsibilities—if not better.
Read the full story, including charts and data, here.
By role, travel managers/supervisors reported the largest jump in salary, at 6 percent. By travel program spend, companies with less than $2 million in United States-booked air spend awarded the largest pay increase as a percentage of salary, at 6.4 percent. By dollar amount, however, companies
with United States-booked air spend of more than $20 million awarded the largest increase, at more than $7,000 on average more than last year.
Notable among these stats is that female travel managers edged out their male counterparts in their annual average salary increase, at least when viewed by percentage (averaging 5.3 percent among female respondents versus 3.9 percent among males). Male travel buyers gained a few dollars on
their female counterparts when increases were viewed by actual dollar amount, though ($5,251 versus $5,267), maintaining both the tradition and trajectory that women, regardless of positive survey spin, are the losers in the travel management salary game.
The Pay Gap In Travel Management: A Short History Of A
Long Practice
It’s worth noting that 72 percent of travel managers responding to the BTN Salary & Attitude Survey this year were female. For at least the past five years, that percentage has remained roughly constant, ranging from about 65 percent to 72 percent.
With smaller numbers of male travel managers responding, a handful of higher salaries can skew average numbers, but even when controlling for that effect, salaries of male travel managers are historically higher. Average salaries for female travel managers over the past eight years pulled in
less than 75 cents for every dollar earned by their male counterparts.
That is lower than the national average, which pegs women’s salaries overall at 78 cents to every dollar earned by a man in 2015. What gives?
A Closer Look: Survey Shows Immediate Inequities
In an effort to uncover where these inequities begin—and whether there are any points at which the gap narrows—BTN analyzed this year’s data by the number of years the respondent had been managing travel and compared men’s and women’s salaries at each designated point along the
timeline: respondents with three years or less of travel management experience, those with four to nine years, 10 to 20, 21 to 30 and, finally, more than 30 years. Granted, this inquiry looked at these groups within a single year of data; it’s a small sample, but provocative contours emerged.
The comparatively good news is that the women who have been at it the longest, over 30 years, have closed the pay gap to 90 cents on a man’s dollar. That’s still 10 percent shy of their male counterparts but better than the women just starting out. Those with three years or less experience
managing travel made an average of $71,908 compared with $100,667 for men with the same experience level. That’s 71 cents on the man’s dollar.
With four to nine years under their belts, women in this year’s survey stretched their earnings to 77 cents on the man’s dollar, excluding the C-level executives that completed the survey. All the C-levels who responded to this year’s survey were concentrated among travel managers
with four to nine years of experience, and all were male. If we add those respondents back into the survey with the understanding that this is a small sample size, the average salary among men in this group jumps to more than $161,000. That is almost twice the $86,097 average salary reported among women
respondents at this experience level.
Taken in a vacuum, the six percentage point salary advance among women in this category compared to their non-C-level peers could be encouraging. But it’s a cold comfort: The absence of women in leadership roles, even in smaller companies where C-level executives would take ownership of the
travel programs, is a key takeaway from the survey. It echoes parlance on the gender wage gap overall and further evidences the dearth of women in leadership roles across U.S. corporations.
With 10 to 20 years of experience behind them, men in this year’s survey posted close to a $30,000 increase over their counterparts at four to nine years of experience. This compared with a woman’s $18,000 dollar advance in the same time period. Women with 20 to 30 years of experience, however, may
finally get their payday, advancing their salaries $16,000 compared with almost no advancement by male counterparts at this level of experience.
The Why & The How
Leigh Gallagher, writing for Fortune after releasing the publication’s anticipated 40 Under 40 issue last October, postulated about why the annual list has not yet reached parity between men and women. The fact that it tends to reward entrepreneurship—which, for now, seems to be a young
man’s game—is one apparent reason. But she observed that if the list were expanded to include 45 year olds, there would be many additional women on the list.
The idea that women hit their strides in their careers after 40 is not new, and the numbers in this year’s BTN Salary Survey certainly support it. After 20 years of travel management experience, which would likely place many of our respondents right around 44 or 45, salaries
jump. Hypotheses abound about the reasons why. It’s anyone’s guess, from having put childbearing and intensive childcaring years behind them (though many female professionals clearly continue to have children into their 40s) to the idea that after 40, many women gain more confidence in their skills and in their
value to their organizations, take more risks and push for more recognition.
Results suggest the latter for Salary Survey respondents. Males with three or fewer years of experience in travel management all enjoyed bonus or incentive pay as part of their salaries, whereas only 62 percent of women starting out in travel management could say the same. And that percentage
proved slow to change, rising just six percentage points (to 68 percent) for women with four to nine years of experience and then five percentage points more (to 73 percent) for those with 10 to 20 years of experience.
Incentive pay, however, seems to be the locus of the compensation jump for female survey respondents with 21 to 30 years of travel management experience. At this level, a full 87 percent of female travel managers enjoyed some kind of bonus or incentive package. Whether they moved
into more senior roles associated with this type of compensation or they pushed for better pay structures within an existing position is impossible to say.
Whatever the why and how, it’s a bright spot in the survey for all women in the managed travel industry and for all those who support equity for women in the workplace. Unfortunately, even the women in this year’s survey who are 30-plus years into their careers did not reach salary parity
with their male counterparts. So there is clearly still work to be done.
Women in Travel, founded by former Citi managing director and global head of general services and travel Mick Lee, is a group of both women and men who support the advancement of women in managed travel. The group has acknowledged issues like unequal pay in the industry but also the need to
advocate for more female leaders. Look for a follow up with WINiT in the August issue of BTN.
Additional Findings
The BTN Salary & Attitude Survey also asks participants other questions, such as descriptions of their responsibilities to date and their perspectives on their employment outlook.
Current & Future Responsibilities
It stands to reason that companies with smaller travel budgets spend less time managing travel compared to companies with larger budgets. Overall, 35 percent of travel managers surveyed spent 100 percent of their time managing travel. Just 11 percent of the smallest programs (under $2 million in
U.S. air spend) dedicated a full resource to managing travel, while 53 percent of the largest programs (more than $20 million in U.S. air spend) had a dedicated resource.
As in years past, strategic meetings management continues to be the next big priority for managed travel pros. More than one-third already have tasks and responsibilities related to SMM, and one-quarter said they will have responsibilities in this area in the next two years.
Surprisingly, given all of the conversation around mobile travel and services, ownership of that space by travel managers may be nearing its limit, or a good portion of travel managers are not keyed into its true influence on their responsibilities. One-quarter of respondents manage mobile
travel technology and services, but only an additional 8 percent say they will do so in the future. That leaves 67 percent of respondents who don’t see themselves taking on mobile.
Job Performance, Satisfaction & Future Outlook
Travel manager compensation remains bound tightly to savings and cost avoidance. Nearly 40 percent of respondents said their pay depends on their ability to deliver it. For 35 percent, leadership is looking for the travel department’s contribution to the organization’s value, while one-quarter
of respondents said their companies take a well-rounded approach with a formula that considers savings, satisfaction, reporting and strategic initiatives.
Overall, 70 percent of survey respondents felt that their efforts to achieve these goals were either adequately recognized or very well recognized, though women voiced less satisfaction in this area, with just 66 percent agreeing with that statement while 78 percent of men agreed.
Concurrently, 69 percent said they envision staying with their employer over the next two years, either in the same position or a more advanced but related position. Five percent were looking for a new role with their current employer.
Nineteen percent predicted they would be at a different employer—7 percent in a similar role to their current one and 12 percent in a different type of role.
Many survey participants expected salary increases to continue for travel managers overall; 39 percent believed travel manager salaries would increase in the coming year, while 59 percent said they would stay the same. Just 2 percent went negative, saying travel manager salaries
would lose ground.
This report originally appeared in the July 27, 2015,
issue of Business Travel News.