GDS owner Travelport claims it has found a new trend among business travellers for ‘flying visits’, where they are spending longer in the air than at the destination.
The Travelport study showed in the past 12 months, more than one million business travellers made a 20+ hour round trip to long-haul destinations but spent less than 12 hours in the country.
Business travellers flying to the top three most popular long distance destinations spent £3.4 billion on flights last year but spent less than half a day in those countries, the study found.
Travelport said this “new trend” reveals the significance businesses are putting on face-to-face meetings.
The figures are based on UK Office for National Statistics figures on the number of business trips in a year.
The US (13%), Hong Kong (9%) and China (6%) top the list of long distance destinations people are travelling to for the shortest time, with 50 per cent of business travellers spending 12 hours or less in these countries.
The study also found almost 135,000 business travellers visited Australia and spent less than 12 hours there.
Almost one-third of those polled travelled long-distance to attend an important meeting and 16 per cent travelled to sign a business deal in person.
Travelport’s regional director Simon Ferguson, said: “We can see there is huge value in face-to-face meetings to foster new relationships or sign deals and UK business people are prepared to fly a long way when the stakes are high.
“This trend persisted even during the economic downturn and with business travel spending set to grow more than 3 per cent in 2014, we expect UK businesses to invest even more in future trips,” added Ferguson.