Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) reported (16-Mar-2023) the following highlights from a report based on survey responses from 151 US corporate travel buyers:
- Most respondents expect their company's business travel to increase and return to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2023. 77% expect external meetings to reach pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2023, followed by 76% for conference and group travel, 74% for domestic business travel and 69% for internal meetings;
- One in 10 do not expect business travel volumes to return until 2025 or later, citing inflation, rising prices, travel disruptions and a potential recession as their top concerns;
- 64% stated their companies are unlikely to limit business travel. 36% are not seriously considering limiting business travel. 19% reported their companies are already implementing a plan to limit business travel;
- Cost savings are a priority for 65% of senior leadership and 54% of travel managers. Traveller experience is a priority for 51% of travel managers and 42% of executives;
- 72% of travel managers are dedicating more time to traveller communications and answering questions than they did pre-pandemic. 59% are spending more time on overseeing their travel management company (TMC) relationship, 52% are spending more time on data analysis and 42% are spending more time on risk management and traveller tracking;
- The top stakeholder collaborations for travel managers are finance and accounting (69%), senior leadership (49%) and risk management and security (44%). 59% regularly share travel related performance metrics with senior leadership;
- 62% stated cost metrics will be the most important measures to evaluate their programme's success in 2023, followed by 32% for travel experience metrics;
- The top TMC pain points are agents and assistance (48%), data analysis, reporting and dash boarding (37%) and the ability of the TMC to deliver a customised travel programme (33%);
- The top online booking tool pain points are the end user and traveller experience (49%), the ability to manage changes or cancellations (47%) and innovation (41%).
The report was conducted by GBTA and Spotnana. Data collection for the online survey took place from 12-Dec-2022 to 03-Jan-2023. [more - original PR]