How does your employer arrange business travel? Some businesses work with a specific travel agency. Others have a staff travel manager. An employee like the controller may handle corporate travel. This year, says Greg Land, 14.5 percent of business travelers will use an online booking tool.

Land is v.p. of strategic online and leisure for Sabre, a business that introduced its first online corporate booking tool in 1995. Land discussed corporate travel trends while in town for the EyeforTravel e-marketing conference at the Mission Valley Marriott. In 1999, 3 percent of business travelers used online booking tools. The number rose to 7 percent in 2000 and 13 percent last year. The forecast for 2003 is 20.3 percent of business people.

Sabre’s offerings for this market include GetThere, a program that is stored in files on employees’ computers. One version of GetThere has criteria that can be set to establish travel policy. GetThere filters only the travel that an employee is eligible for; a manager won’t access the same information that a senior v.p. does.

Customers for this tool include Fortune 500 companies and those with what Land called “heavily managed” travel policies. For smaller companies and those with less stringent travel rules, Sabre CorporateRes is accessed on travel agency Web sites.

While post-Sept. 11 bookings dropped about 65 percent, by the first week of October corporate bookings rose to 89 percent of those projected to book online.

When airport security tightened, people had to show proof of their travel arrangements. Online booking had been touted as a paperless transaction, so Land’s industry had to adapt. By November, customers received a reservation number and could print an e-ticket receipt to show during check in.

At EyeForTravel, participants compared notes about how they got home from the last conference. The previous EyeforTravel was scheduled for Sept. 10 and 11 in New Orleans, and the second day was canceled. With flights grounded, travel professionals converged at train stations and car rental agencies. Their destinations ranged from Canada to Land’s home state of Texas. They joined others trying to return home. When the last car was rented and filled with passengers, Land joined a group of people who rented a limousine.

“I watched the events on TV with people I didn’t know. It was like a microcosm (of the reaching out across the country),” he says.