In-person meetings are dominating travel budgets as domestic and international business travel continues to rebound, according to a new study by the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA).
Customer and prospect meetings make up 31 per cent of 2022 travel budgets, conferences and trade shows are allocated 21 per cent, and internal meetings take up 17 per cent, as shown in the study.
Spend for conferences in 2022, as a share of overall business travel spend, is expected to exceed 2019 levels by four percentage points.
The study, which surveyed 547 travel managers and suppliers in June, also highlighted continued optimism towards the travel rebound, with 84 per cent of respondents reporting an increase in bookings compared to the previous month.
“As Covid-19 becomes more manageable in many regions, companies and employees are getting back to travelling for business, fuelled by the need to get back to business,” said GBTA CEO Suzanne Neufang. “We are now seeing, however, other factors beyond Covid-19 coming into play that could affect the speed and trajectory of recovery for business travel as we head into the second half of 2022.”
Eighty-night per cent of respondents reported non-essential domestic business travel is sometimes or usually allowed at their company, along with non-essential international business travel (78 per cent).
However the report revealed that, as well as lingering Covid-19 concerns, travel managers are also facing issues related to government policies and restrictions (43 per cent), staffing shortages (33 per cent) and supply chain bottlenecks (30 per cent). Economic concerns such as inflation (28 per cent) and oil prices (27 per cent) are also impacting corporate travel programmes.
Nine in ten (88 per cent) travel and procurement managers reported their employees are “willing” or “very willing” to travel for business in the current environment. While 46 per cent of respondents said employees are somewhat or very concerned about Covid-19 when it comes to returning to business travel. To manage risk, most companies (65 per cent) have introduced an opt-out process for concerned employees. Thirty-one per cent said opt-out requests are addressed on a case-by-case basis.