CIBC: Business travel optimismSigns Of Optimism For Corporate Travel – Transportation & Aerospace Weekly
Key Points
The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) released its latest corporate travel survey (link) on February 18. Corporate travel has been hard hit by the pandemic with Airlines For America (A4A) noting this past week that corporate ticket sales in the U.S. were down 85.7% versus 2019 levels, highlighting that corporate travel continues to lag leisure travel. Sixty-four percent of companies surveyed by GBTA have cancelled or suspended most or all domestic business trips and 89% of companies have done so for international trips. That said, the recent survey results from GBTA provided some signs of optimism for corporate travel. Key findings from the survey were: - Twenty-six percent of respondents plan to resume domestic business travel in the next 1-3 months which is up 10 points from the January survey. Seven percent of respondents plan to resume international business travel in the next 1-3 months which is up two points from the last survey. Looking at Canada specifically, 12% expect to resume travel in the next 1-3 months while 49% are considering resuming travel in the near-term but no definite plans.
- Seventeen percent of travel managers think that their company’s employees will not be willing to travel, which is down from 24% in January.
- Seventy-eight percent of respondents said they would feel comfortable travelling for business after receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, with another 14% saying they are indifferent. In other words, only 7% of those polled would feel uncomfortable travelling for work even after receiving a vaccine.
- Sixty-eight percent of those polled noted that border restrictions have resulted in reduced business travel.
While the GBTA survey points to a challenging environment for corporate travel today, it does indicate that as the vaccine rollout progresses and government travel restrictions begin to ease, there is also pent-up demand for business travel.