Second-quarter transactions for American Express Global Business Travel recovered to 69% of 2019 levels, representing $6.5 billion of total value. Revenue recovered to 65% of pre-pandemic levels at $486 million.
The transaction recovery, which takes into consideration Amex GBT’s acquisitions of Egencia and Ovation Travel Group, marked an improvement of 22 percentage points from the first quarter.
By June, transactions had recovered to 76% of 2019 levels. For small and midsize clients, transactions in the month of June reached 84% of 2019 levels, according to the company.
That improvement has the TMC better positioned to meet continued growing demand in coming months, CEO Paul Abbott said during the company’s Q2 earnings call, Amex GBT’s first since it began trading as a public company.
“The sharp rise that we saw in the second quarter in terms of the return of business travel certainly drove an acceleration of our recruitment efforts to ensure that we are best positioned to deliver on customer expectations, particularly as we prepare for what we believe will be a busy period for business travel from September,” Abbott said. “We’re continuing to invest in expanding our digital channels and voice services to make sure we’re providing the powerful backing of Amex GBT to our customers through what is a period of greater travel demand and increased travel complexity.”
Amex GBT reported client wins in the 12 months leading up through the end of July totaling $4.2 billion in annual travel volume. Abbott named JPMorgan Chase as one big client acquisition, and Amex GBT will begin serving that company during the current quarter.
Client retention for Amex GBT has been “very stable,” running at 95% over the 12 months through July 31, Abbott said.
Amex GBT CFO Martine Gerow said the integration of Egencia is “proceeding well” and that Egencia “maintains a strong win-loss ratio and customer retention rates.”
The TMC reported a net loss of $2 million for the second quarter, compared with a $55 million loss in the second quarter of 2021.
Source: Business Travel News
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