Corporate Travel Analysis Reports For Europe/MEA

The travel, tourism and aviation industries in the across the globe witness policy and upper level changes on a daily basis. It is important to not only keep tabs of these organisations direction, but to also monitor changes in executive branches to see the wider picture of the travel market. CTC - Corporate Travel Community aims to keep you informed of these movements each month, with a full wrap of the key changes across regional markets, while also featuring key appointments announced for the month.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine will have implications for travel across the world and will hinder the recovery in long-haul flying especially on routes that previously operated over the airspace of the two countries.

Airline trade body International Air Transport Association (IATA) expects overall traveller numbers to reach four billion in 2024 (counting multi-sector connecting trips as one passenger), exceeding pre-COVID-19 levels (103% of the 2019 total). The latest update to IATA's long-term forecast, remain relatively unchanged from what was projected back in Nov-2021, prior to the arrival of the Omicron variant.

In fact, expectations for the shape of the near-term recovery have shifted slightly for the better, reflecting the evolution of government-imposed travel restrictions in some markets. This has seen improvements in the major North Atlantic and intra-European markets, strengthening the baseline for recovery.

The extensive travel restrictions that governments across the world have imposed to reduce the spread of COVID-19 have been shown to have had "little or no impact on the spread" of the Omicron variant, according to new independent research. The findings of the European study are behind a new proposal into developing a Europe-wide policy for removing restrictions and a model that could be adopted across the globe.

We have learnt a lot in the last year, but it does now appear that we may be successfully descending from the heights of a pandemic that hit the world by surprise and changed the way we live our lives, do business and even consider our own futures. The year ahead is one that we can approach with our eyes wide open with intelligence from 2021 helping to bring added optimism that travel will take stronger steps forward over the 12 months ahead.

As we enter 2022, the latest edition of the Henley Passport Index shows record-breaking levels of travel freedom for top-ranking nations Japan and Singapore, but also the widest recorded global mobility gap since the index's inception 17 years ago.

The study shows that while citizens of upper middle- and high-income countries have achieved visa-free access to most nations, citizens of lower middle- and low-income countries, as well as ones with higher fragility scores, enjoy far less travel freedom because they are deemed to be high-risk when it comes to security, asylum, and overstay.

The progress of the new Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and most notably governments' response to it, has already influenced travel's recovery. The threat of this new variant had been far from clear with initial information focussing on it appearing more contagious than earlier variants and suggestions that vaccines would not be as effective against it.

A survey of German travel managers has found sustainability is increasingly becoming a competitive factor in choosing service providers for business travel. A very high majority of commercial travel managers (90%) and almost all of them in the public sector (97%) reported they expect sustainability criteria will develop into a competitive factor that has some impact on choosing service providers, according to latest research from VDR, Germany's business travel association.

It all seemed pretty normal to the naked eye over the European peak summer holiday period. Looking up to the sky numerous aircraft trials fought for space with the clouds, airport departure boards filled with flights as the sound of aircraft noise became a welcome relief to the silence of lockdown. However, what appeared to be a recovery still looked very different to the world before COVID-19 arrived.

Across 2021, airline CEOs from all parts of the world have spoken openly at the monthly CAPA Live virtual summit about air travel, the coronavirus crisis and the path to recovery. To say 2020 and 2021 have been a challenge for these professionals is a major understatement and each shares the journey for their respective airlines through one of the biggest crises to hit the world.