A solid majority of companies said they plan to maintain or increase business travel spending this year, and many are tightening policies to save money rather than imposing wider travel restrictions, according to the annual SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey.
The survey—which included responses from 700 travel managers across seven business markets, 3,750 business travelers across 24 markets and 600 CFOs across six markets—was fielded from April 30 through May 12, which Concur noted was "during a period of high uncertainty associated with global trade." Even so, 93 percent of travel managers, 90 percent of CEOs and 89 percent of travelers said their company had no plans to cut travel budgets.
Across all respondent types, about 60 percent said their company typically makes travel budget cuts in the form of "small changes to all trips" rather than wider policy changes, and 87 percent of business travelers said they had seen such cuts over the previous 12 months, according to Concur. The most frequently cited cuts in the survey were on extra overnight stays to prevent long travel days and use of premium air classes, each cited by 30 percent of travelers, and non-client-facing travel, cited by 28 percent of travelers.
Amid those cutbacks, 85 percent of business travelers said they would pay out of their own pockets to add additional perks to business travel, the survey indicated. Among the most frequent items travelers were willing to take on as personal expenses included: accommodation upgrades (38 percent of travelers), adding hotel nights to avoid long travel days (35 percent) and premium seating (30 percent).
That willingness varied by region, with 99 percent of respondents from India and 91 percent from the United States saying they would pay their own money to improve their business travel experience, compared with 66 percent of travelers from France and 73 percent of travelers from Japan. Younger travelers also were more likely to spend their own money on business travel, with 93 percent of Gen Z travelers indicating they would do some compared with 62 percent of baby boomers.
In addition, the survey indicated that many company travel budgets are "insufficient," according to Concur. More than 80 percent of CFOs said company budget limitations prevent employees from traveling as much as they need to efficiently perform their jobs, and 69 percent of travel managers said their company travel budget didn't reflect the importance of business travel.
Business travelers, meanwhile, were nearly unanimous in their willingness to travel, with 97 percent saying they were at least somewhat willing to travel over the next year, and 94 percent said business travel was essential to their role. Only about half of surveyed travelers thought their current frequency of travel was about right, with 30 percent saying they are traveling too much and 19 percent saying they are not traveling enough.