ONLINE corporate travel reservation company GetThere has announced plans to expand its European presence as an increasing number of fleet and travel managers look to use 'efficient' methods to book their travel requirements.

And to help it achieve its aim the company has appointed Richard Adams as its vice-president and general manger of European operations.

He is tasked with 'expanding GetThere's European presence by growing the company's customer base within the European online corporate travel market, and driving greater use of corporate online booking across the region.'

Adams will report to GetThere president Jeff Palmer, who said: 'Traditionally, only a small percentage of all European corporate travel bookings have been made online. This is changing, though, as companies, start to look for new and more efficient ways to manage the significant sums that they spend each year on business travel.'

Adams said the task of encouraging greater usage of online corporate travel booking in Europe would be made significantly easier by simple economics.

'Our customers are reporting that they are spending an average of 15% less on airfares, and 43% less on travel agency fees for trips booked online,' he said. 'When you multiply that across the millions of business trips booked by the top 1,000 European companies each year, there's a strong incentive for booking travel online.'