Survey contrasts federal and corporate travelers

Federal travelers call in professional help more often than corporate travelers when making travel arrangements, according to a survey released this month.

With more regulations and spending limits to comply with than their private-sector counterparts, federal travelers more frequently ask travel arrangers in their organizations to take care of booking transportation and lodging. Corporate travelers tend to make their own travel arrangements more often, the survey found.

OAG Worldwide, a travel information publisher, surveyed federal and corporate travelers at tradeshows over the past three years. More than 2,400 responses were gathered.

"The government traveler has some unique attitudes that are in some respects different from the corporate traveler," said Curt Reilly, head of OAG's government business unit. Reilly said busy government professionals have sent the travel industry a message through the survey: "I don't want to spend a lot of time dealing with travel issues. I have a job to do."

In addition to relying on travel arrangers, 24 percent of government employees said they use the Internet to access travel information, compared to just 12 percent of corporate travelers, according to the survey.

Federal travelers also stay away on trips for longer periods of time than their private sector counterparts, the survey found. While a business traveler might take an airplane to a business lunch in a city several hundreds miles away and then catch an evening plane home, federal travelers wouldn't be able to justify a plane ride just for a lunch, Reilly said. Because of the shorter stays, corporate travelers stay in hotels while on official travel 40 percent of the time, compared to 47 percent of the time for government travelers.

One surprising find was that federal travelers use frequent flyer miles earned on official travel for personal trips as often as for government travel. Most federal employees are not allowed to use Uncle Sam's frequent flyer miles for personal travel, though some agencies have special gainsharing programs that allow such use.