Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Report predicts recovery in North Europe and continued trouble in the South during 2012, but higher levels of business travel spend across all Europe in 2013

Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) Report predicts recovery in North Europe and continued trouble in the South during 2012, but higher levels of business travel spend across all Europe in 2013 PR Newswire LONDON, June 12, 2012 LONDON, June 12, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), the world's premier business travel and corporate meetings organization, announces the results of its inaugural "GBTA Business Travel Index (BTI)™ Outlook - Western Europe" economic analysis, sponsored by Visa Inc. This semi-annual series includes the GBTA BTI which provides a method for distilling market performance and the outlook for business travel into a single metric to be tracked over time. "GBTA BTI™ Outlook - Western Europe" includes an analysis of the five most critical business travel markets in Europe: Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain. Highlights Growth in business travel spending ("BTS") in the three major European economies: Germany, the UK and France will be nearly flat in 2012: UK is forecast to grow BTS by 0.7% Germany is forecast to grow BTS by 0.6% French BTS is forecast to decline by 0.6% Forecast levels of 2012 BTS in Germany, UK and France all exhibit growth in domestic travel, but declines in international outbound spending ("IOB"): UK domestic BTS is forecast to grow by 2.7% but IOB is forecast to fall by 2.8% German domestic BTS is forecast to grow by 1.1% but IOB is forecast to fall by 1.