NBTA Report Puts Global Business Travel Spending At Nearly $1 Trillion

A new National Business Travel Association report estimates total global business travel spending volume at $929 billion, including air, car, hotel and food and beverage spending and managed and unmanaged business travel volume.

The Egencia-sponsored and IHS-conducted Global Insight report examined 72 countries and 48 industry sectors. The United States in 2008 was the largest business travel market, with $261.4 billion in volume, 28 percent of the world's business travel spending. By 2013, the report projects that figure drop below 25 percent. China has become the second-largest market at $93.8 billion, surpassing Japan. The United States is projected to grow at a 0.3 percent annual average rate, while China, Japan and South Korea are projected to grow at the highest rates through 2013.

The study also found that business travel spending in North America, Western Europe and the Asia/Pacific region is fairly similar in size and comprise a combined 90 percent of the world's volume. North America generated $286.5 billion, or 30.8 percent of the world's 2008 spending. Western Europe spent $279.5 billion, 30.1 percent of the global volume. Asia/Pacific, with a 7.2 percent compound annual growth rate from 1998 to 2008 that enabled it to catch up with the two largest regions, in 2008 spent $265.2 billion, 28.6 percent of the world's business travel spending.

According to NBTA lead research consultant Kenneth McGill, future phases of the study will include reports on business travel's economic impact, its relation to corporate performance and the effects of managed travel. Survey sources include market-specific panel research studies of corporate and household spending on business travel, government statistics and an NBTA-developed survey of 500 U.S.-based CFOs.