Germany's Association of German Travel Management (VDR) reported (21-Jul-2023) German companies expect more business trips once again, with customer needs and networking in the focus. VDR reported the following highlights of the AirPlus International survey of German top managers, regarding business travel:
- 97% see disadvantages in replacing business trips with video conferences, citing in particular the lack of both personal encounters and opportunities for networking;
- 47% expect trips will increase or significantly increase in the next 12 months, 29% do not expect any change, while 25% expect a decline;
- 46% expect a significant increase in 'bleisure' trips;
- 55% expect customer preference and social acceptance of travel to have a significant influence on travel behaviour in the future, followed by traveller safety (54%). Travel costs are expected to play a rather minor role in relation to other factors (44%);
- 54% expect colleague's air travel to increase or increase significantly, and 52% expect the same to be the case for train journeys and trips in their own cars;
- In order to reduce business travel costs, the proportion of measures that have already been implemented has improved consistently compared to 2019. The introduction of lower cost travel options, such as rides on services like Uber, has been particularly popular. In 2019, 31% implemented this measure, with this now increased to 55%. [more - original PR - German]