Domestic business travel is set to grow more strongly in the next five years than international trips, according to a report by research firm Euromonitor International.
The report which looks at business travel trends up to 2017 found that global corporate travel was likely to “see growth stabilising” at around 4 per cent per year based on business travel arrivals.
Euromonitor is also predicting that spending on travel will increasingly shift towards doing business in emerging markets. The report was unveiled at the Business Travel Market Knowledge Forum in London.
Research analyst Tahiyya Jurdine said: “We see growth in business travel stabilising but spend will be concise and it will only be focused on emerging markets and specific business opportunities.
“Domestic trip growth is going to outperform international business arrivals. This is because companies will be more comfortable travelling within their own region and it is also an effective way to save costs.
“They would rather save money by not travelling internationally unless they have to visit key emerging markets.”
Euromonitor is predicting that the Asia Pacific region will have the highest domestic travel growth in the next few years while India is expected to have highest business arrivals by 2017.
Jurdine said that western Europe continues to be the largest business travel market in the world with a 37 per cent share of all international arrivals – although Asia Pacific is catching up fast with a 29 per cent share.
She added that despite Asia Pacific’s growth it was not expected to overtake Europe as the world’s biggest corporate travel market by 2017.
The UK saw “very little” increase in outbound business travel trips between 2011 and 2012 although there was stronger growth for inbound business travellers visiting the UK.
“Arrivals were stronger than departures for the UK,” added Jurdine. “London remains one of the key business cities in the world although the UK may be resting on its laurels and allowing business to come to them.”