New research from BCD Travel finds that the UK and US retain their leading positions as the most popular, intra-European and intercontinental destinations for Dutch business travellers.
The Cities & Trends Report BeNeLux report revealed that Sweden had fallen out of the top ten European destinations following a fall in flights of nearly a quarter year-on-year. "Denmark and Poland both improved on their 2015 rankings with 14.7 % and 21.5 % increases respectively. Austria was the new entrant in 2016 as flights increased by nearly 30 %," the report said.
Most popular intra-European destinations from the Netherlands
At the city level, London remains the most popular destination, with a pair of German cities filling the top three: Munich and Frankfurt, the latter of which saw an 8% increase in business travellers.
"Sweden's economic blues in 2016 are reflected in a decrease of nearly 25% in business travel from the Netherlands," said Diederik Banken, BCD Travel's VP new business & client retention EMEA.
Outside Europe, business travel habits remain largely the same as the chart below shows. Traffic from the Netherlands to India rose by 8.6%. Business traffic to Egypt slumped by 37%, which saw the country lose its place in the listing to Indonesia.
Most popular intercontinental destinations from the Netherlands
New York retails the top intercontinental city spot, followed by Singapore and Dubai.
BCD's findings come three months after a report by NBTC/NIPO research (in Dutch) showed that the Dutch took 8.6 million business trips in 2016, with the number of foreign business trips growing by around 1%. The economic value of this business activity amount to €4.4 billion, the company said.
Dutch buyers will meet at the second Business Travel Summit at the RAI Amsterdam on 26 and 27 September to discuss where Europe is going, travel manager salaries, the new GDPR rules and terrorism. Register to attend here.