American Express has said corporations continued to tighten travel spending and frequency in the second quarter as airlines faced heavy competition in a reduced market for business travellers.

Airfares across the globe dropped on average by 19% to a four-year low during the second quarter as businesses encouraged their employees to fly economy class rather than business.  Domestic airfares within the US also dropped by 18 percent to $212, the lowest it has been since at least 2003.

The statistics were obtained from the purchases information at American Express’ business travel division.

The data also showed that hotel rates went up by 6 percent as European cities also had increased occupancy during the second quarter, but dropped by 12% a year earlier.  In the US, a 2 percent decline was recorded in paid rates in the quarter, but remained steady from the year before.

American Express also noted that the average price of car rentals has decreased by 3 percent in both the second quarter and for the year.

The company collected the data on mean prices for air, hotel and car rental services by major cities and classes of service through aggregate analysis of its worldwide database of purchase information.

Thanks to CNN for the above quotes and figures.  For more information on this article visit CNN.com