Business travel bounces back as companies increase spending plans

By K. Oanh Ha

Business travel, after shrinking to almost nothing during the pandemic and then being slow to bounce back as companies kept one eye on costs, looks to be finally back in vogue.

 

Some 42 per cent of corporate travel planners in a global survey said they intend to boost spending on business trips over the coming 12 months as the lucrative-for-airlines segment rebounds, with expectations it may even surpass pre-Covid levels.

In terms of number of trips being taken, only 10 per cent of the more than 560 respondents to Flight Centre Travel Group’s inaugural State of the Market survey anticipated a reduction, with almost one-third saying they expect to travel by up to 20 per cent more.

 

The return to the skies for corporate road warriors is being reflected in business travel spending, which the Global Business Travel Association expects to grow 11 per cent this year to top $1.48 trillion. Such travelers have long been a coveted segment for the industry since they account for a big chunk of airline and hotel profits. 

Business travelers are also now routinely blending work and leisure, making them an even more attractive demographic.

“Corporate travel is now, without question, deemed to be a non-discretionary spend for businesses,” said Melissa Elf, Flight Centre’s global chief operating officer.

While Asia Pacific leads the trend, there are some markets, like China, where business travel hasn’t fully rebounded, in part because international flights to China haven’t completely resumed. 

Marriott International Inc. is one company witnessing the rebound first hand, with the MICE — meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions — segment in Asia performing strongly.

“As we came out of the pandemic, leisure led the recovery and soon after, we saw MICE come up,” the hotel group’s president of Asia Pacific ex-China, Rajeev Menon, said at Bloomberg’s CEO Forum in Jakarta this week.

“Given that much of Asia is driven by relationships, people came out early,” he said. “Our corporate business actually had fully recovered by the second quarter of last year.”