COMP NEWS – A new 2023 report on travel manager compensation reveals substantial unrest among employees who feel they are underpaid in their positions relative to their responsibilities.

Any hopes harbored by European tra­vel managers of a ‘quiet’ year in 2023 were dashed by increasing travel costs, geopolitical unrest, resource constraints and content fragmentation – four subjects uppermost on their minds, according to BTN Europe’s inaugural Travel Manager Salary & Job Satisfaction survey. 

Fielded at a time of growing job complexity and increasing living costs, the survey paints a picture of a challenging environment for travel managers in which respondents were almost equally divided between those who feel they are paid fairly for their responsibilities and those who don’t.

With inflation and the cost of living varying significantly across the continent, the fluctuation of exchange rates, and the role of the travel manager defined—and valued—in different ways, the average European travel manager salary should not be seen as a benchmark for all in the role against which to compare themselves.

And as the inaugural such survey, there is no historic data to compare the figure with so, this year, more significant are the country-by-country figures and the not unexpected links between experience, program size and remuneration packages, and the travel managers’ biggest challenges and concerns in their role.

The UK and Ireland are slightly ahead of the curve, where the average travel manager salary exceeds the overall European average.

According to BTN Europe’s survey, only in the UK and Ireland does the average travel manager salary exceed the overall European average, coming in at €85,235 and €83,500 respectively.

The figure for Ireland, where the big tech scene has helped transform its economy, was bolstered by the highest average bonus as part of overall remuneration packages – 11.3 percent compared to a Europe-wide average of a 7.2 percent bonus.

The average annual salary package of German travel managers, at €77,769, fell only just below the wider European average, while the Netherlands (€73,810) was a little further back.

Of the markets where there was sufficient data to provide reliable figures, the lowest average annual salary package for travel managers, at €55,666, was in Italy. That comes as little surprise, however, for the national average wage in the country is also significantly lower than that of other countries featured in this survey.

To read the full 2023 survey on travel manager salaries, click here.

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