A meltdown in the financial services and banking sectors and jitters in the market are also making travel management companies shiver. The companies expect a further dip of 10 to 15 per cent in corporate travel earnings, following a freeze or a tighter leash on travel budgets.

According to travel management companies, travel budgets of financial sector majors have seen a fall of 40 per cent this year compared with the decline in other segments, like manufacturing, which has shrunk by 20 per cent and IT, which has seen a drop of 10-15 per cent.

"Of our total business exposure in India, 18-20 per cent is from the high-end investment banking and financial services segment. This has already seen a decline of at least 40 per cent and, in this segment alone, we are likely to see a further slide of another 5 per cent," said Praveen Gandhi, CEO, Carlson and Wagonlit Travels, one of the biggest travel management companies in India.

The company has seen growth of 30 per cent year-on-year for the last four years, but this year the top line has grown by a mere 15 per cent. More importantly, transactions have been flat. Most of the clients have put a freeze on business travel or have worked out a model whereby they travel for a month and freeze it for the next three months, Gandhi added.

"The slowdown in business travel has mainly come as a fallout of the fear factor because of a shakeout among large investment banking and equity firms. As these clients are the hot-shot category in terms of travel, the number of transactions for us has taken a hit. We can safely say there is another 10 per cent dip likely to happen in this segment by the year-end," said Malvinder Reikhy, CEO, Kuoni's corporate travel arm.