Increased travel prices, however, remain a persistent concern. Health risks and directly pandemic-driven factors still present barriers to corporate travel but generate less concern than in 2021.Business travel is at least two years from reaching prepandemic spend, as some travel use cases are expected to spur fewer trips over the long term. Spend is projected to reach 36% of 2019 levels in Q2 2022, and 55% by the end of the year. Corporate travel will experience a steady, but not meteoric, rise this year.Another 15% say variants triggered a significant rethink of their travel policies. Two-thirds of companies say variants and outbreaks in the second half of 2021 caused them to push back their timelines. COVID-19 variants stalled the recovery, and their impact could be lasting.Only 8% reached that mark, as the delta and omicron variants put a crimp in plans. One-third of travel managers surveyed in June 2021 expected to reach half of 2019 spend levels by the end of the year. Corporate travel did not meet most companies’ expectations in the second half of 2021.Looking around the corner to see what corporate travel will look like as the world moves on from acute health crisis to living with endemic COVID-19, it appears both growth and change await. Corporate travel’s return has begun, but the conferencing technology that replaced nearly all of it beginning in early 2020 will likely continue to replace some of it for the foreseeable future. 2 As health concerns subside, companies will want to continue to bank some of the financial savings and environmentally friendly practices realized from two years of very limited travel. At the same time, the new shape and smaller size of corporate travel can be seen more clearly than a year ago, when Deloitte published its first look at corporate travel’s recovery, Return to a world transformed. A major development in any one of these arenas could accelerate or impede corporate travel’s return. Many uncertainties still hover around the travel industry, from the trajectory of the war in Ukraine to the possibility of China reopening its borders, to the emergence of more COVID-19 variants. Even international trips should grow significantly, although some regions will recover faster than others. More conferences will shift back from online to in-person, and those that already have will likely see attendance improve. Team meetings that have been postponed multiple times will finally take place. Over the remainder of 2022, corporate travel should grow significantly from its now-small base.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |