Business travel demand has remained relatively steady over the past four quarters, but cost controls and trip effectiveness are being more carefully scrutinized and could limit business travel in the next six months, according to a new survey by Tourism Economics conducted in collaboration with the U.S. Travel Association and J.D. Power.
The first-quarter 2023 Business Travel Survey was conducted between March 30 and April 17 and had 2,379 business traveler respondents. The corporate executive survey was conducted between March 28 and April 3 and had 113 respondents.
About 71 percent of corporate executive respondents said that internal cost controls over the next six months likely will constrain employee business travel, up from 59 percent in Q4 2022. Further, the most important non-cost factors for authorizing travel to conferences are that the event is important to growing company sales and revenue (cited by 56 percent of executive respondents) and the ability to meet with multiple new vendors or customers at the same time (50 percent).
The survey also noted air travel inefficiencies are hampering the rebound in business travel. Nearly three in 10 respondents cited reasons other than cost for avoiding or canceling business trips in the past year.
The overall time it took to fly to and from a business event location was cited by 40 percent of respondents when the travel related to customers, suppliers or other stakeholders, and by 37 percent when the travel was for conferences, conventions or trade shows. The possibility of a flight delay and cancellation was cited by 26 percent of respondents for both types of travel.