Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT), the global business travel management giant, said its sales for the first half of 2012 were $15 billion, up a modest 1 percent compared to the same period in 2011. Transactions also rose 1 percent to 32.2 million in the first six months of 2012.

“Our first half performance for 2012 is solid given current economic uncertainty,” said Douglas Anderson, CWT’s president and CEO. “Our customers are continuing to travel and are looking to manage their travel in a more cost-effective way by getting even greater value for what they spend.”

Since the beginning of 2012, CWT said it has continued to introduce products, services and research to help companies better manage their travel programs while achieving savings and driving compliance. For example, CWT published its Travel Management Priorities for 2012 report, which highlights the main changes likely to affect travel programs and looks at global trends and differences between regions. CWT also strengthened its partnership with iJET International and expanded its safety and security offerings to help companies better protect their business travelers.

CWT Meeting Optimizer was developed to help individual organizers and professional meeting planners easily find the best location for a meeting of any size. The CWT Travel Stress Index is being developed to help companies quantify the cost of the stress that employees may incur from traveling and use it to help companies make better travel policy decisions. CWT Travel Management Institute published “Mastering the Maze: A Practical Guide to Air and Ground Savings,” which details how customers can achieve further savings in their travel programs.

CWT To Go, the company’s mobile app, won this year’s Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) award for innovation of the year in the category of “Outstanding apps” – voted for by business travelers. CWT also issued its 2013 Forecast providing price projections for every region of the world, as well as country- and local-level expectations for those markets to which CWT clients most frequently travel.