AC

Businesses that drastically cut back on travel may be sacrificing profits for short-term savings, two new studies released Tuesday say. The reports, commissioned by groups representing the travel industry, sought to show in dollars and cents the effect travel can have on a business' bottom line at a time when companies have slashed travel in response to falling revenue and a public perception that some trips are more excess than necessity. "We understand there's an economic downturn," says Christopher Pike of IHS Global Insight, an economic forecasting and consulting firm that conducted one of the studies. "It doesn't mean cutting business travel by 30% when an industry's sales are down by 5%. That's where we're saying you're probably going too far." The IHS report determined that U.S. companies are potentially missing out on $193 billion in profits this year because most are not spending what they should on business trips. The research, commissioned by the National Business...