American Express Global Business Travel (GBT) has seen its recovery from the pandemic continue to gain traction, with transactions in the EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) region reaching 74 per cent of 2019 levels in the final quarter of 2022.
This figure was an increase of 2 percentage points on the third quarter for operations in EMEA, said Amex GBT in its annual results. Across its global operations, the travel management company saw transactions reach 72 per cent of 2019 levels in Q4 of 2022, which was also an improvement of 26 points on the same quarter in 2021.
CEO Paul Abbott said in an earnings call that these results showed that Amex GBT was “clearly outpacing the broader market”, when compared to research carried out by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA).
Abbott added: “[Our] transaction recovery compares to the [GBTA] January survey that found the recovery of domestic business travel at 67 per cent and international at 54 per cent.”
Amex GBT said that SME clients were “leading the recovery” and it was benefiting from an “all-time high” in win rates and customer satisfaction in this segment of the market. Transaction recovery for SMEs in Q4 reached 82 per cent in 2019 – 10 points above the overall average.
Abbott said the company signed new SME business valuing $2.1 billion during the whole of 2022, with about one quarter coming from companies with previously unmanaged travel programmes.
Total transaction value for the fourth quarter was $5.9 billion, up from $2.7 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021. Revenue was up 84 per cent year-on-year to $527 million.
Amex GBT expects growth to continue this year, with revenue growth in the range of 17 per cent to 20 per cent, said Abbott in the update. The TMC is forecasting that the recovery in the first quarter of 2023 will be in the “mid-70s” per cent range compared to pre-Covid performance.
“The business travel recovery continues, and the outlook remains positive with our customers,” he said. “Industry experts predict business travel spend will continue to grow and capacity will continue to increase, all supporting continued growth in 2023.
“Distributed teams and the hybrid work model are clearly creating new business travel and meetings and events demand, and we see this clearly in our meetings and events results.”
Amex GBT reported a net loss of $63 million for the quarter, compared with a $200 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2021. For the full year, the company's loss was $229 million, compared with $475 million in 2021.