Surveys on business travel and business travellers are not unusual. The latest one from American Express, however, looks not just at the inevitable volumes but behind that at the detail of the trip and how it might affect output.
The results point to the returns that some additional pre-trip input can yield. According to the report, "Of those who prepare for business travel, 70% said they typically research topics in advance of meetings, while over two thirds (68%) prepare presentations in advance. In a nod to the increasing importance of trading overseas for UK companies, 55% of those who research countries they haven't been to before said they read about local customs and etiquette, while just over half of UK travellers (52%) spend time researching the local political and economic environment. In spite of this level of preparation, almost a third of UK business travellers (30%) believe they have made a cultural faux pas when travelling abroad for business."
Travellers also seem to prepare for potential problems in advance. The report found that "Professionals highlighted the top issues that can impact their productivity during business travel, including last minute travel delays affecting two thirds (66%), followed by internet access or other technology problems (62%)."
The survey also looked at the effects of reduced business travel and the most important are shown in this week's chart, below.
What the report does not tackle is how much of this prior preparation has to do with the individual travellers and how much with the company itself. If companies know that they are about to have a regular volume of travel to a particular destination, they could help their travellers — and therefore the company — a lot by building a library information for all travellers to a region. Far easier, and more productive, to update a shared resource than to start from scratch every time.
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Similarly travel delays may be beyond the ability of any individual travel manager to rectify, but there could be a corporate response to minimise technology issues for travellers on the road — do they have the same access to IT support as those sitting at company desks?
Amex's survey is no doubt aimed to remind corporates to think of the value of business travel to companies rather than focus on its cost but it highlights ways of supporting travellers' efforts at little or no extra marginal cost.
Surveys are valuable not just for the behavioural insights they bring but for the valuable free advice that they inadvertently give.