Business Travel Won’t Make a Real Comeback until 2025

Global business travel spending slumped by over a half to $694 billion during a coronavirus-hit 2020, a figure buoyed by what was a relatively strong first quarter before lockdowns had an impact.

A report from the Global Business Travel Association released this week says it expects there to be a 21% increase in business travel expenditure during 2021.

Despite some commentators and reports suggesting that business travel will never return to pre-pandemic levels, due to the emergence of video meetings and companies recognizing that some cost savings can be made from axing unnecessary travel, a "full recovery" is being forecast by the GBTA within four years.

The GBTA report says that the April to December period saw spend crash to unprecedented levels year-over-year, especially in North America (79%) and Western Europe (77%).

Even with the positive first three months of 2020, North America and Western Europe finished the year down 60% and 58%, respectively.

The equivalent to 400 million full-time jobs in hotels, airlines, ground transportation, restaurants and other service providers was lost in terms of global work hours during 2020.

The GBTA expects a further acceleration in spend during 2022 but the growth will slow during 2023 before hitting a figure of around $1.4 trillion in 2024.

Source: PhocusWire