Around two-thirds of travel buyers based in Europe’s major markets expect their organisation’s business travel to be higher this year than in 2022 but they are concerned about rising costs, according to a survey by events technology specialist Cvent.
Some 600 buyers across the UK, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and the Netherlands took part in the research commissioned by Cvent, which found that 80 per cent felt “positive” about the state of their organisation’s business travel activity.
This included 64 per cent who said there would be more business travel in 2023 than last year, with 19 per cent saying this increase would be “significant”.
The survey also illustrated how minimising costs is also a priority for buyers with 65 per cent saying it was their top concern – this rose even higher to 73 per cent for respondents based in France and the UK.
Buyers are concerned about inflation in the prices of all types of travel products, with 30 per cent expecting ground transport costs to rise the most.
To combat these increasing costs, buyers are using a variety of tactics to reduce spend with the most popular (used by 40 per cent of respondents) being to combine business travel with existing meetings and events that employees are already due to attend.
An increasingly number of buyers (37 per cent) are reducing the number of their colleagues travelling – this figure is even higher for buyers based in France at 43 per cent. Despite there being fewer travellers, most of these buyers still expect overall travel volumes to increase this year.
Around one-fifth of buyers (22 per cent) said that while they planned for fewer journeys to be made by employees, these trips were now tending to be longer in duration.
The majority of European buyers (70 per cent) are also anticipating a higher average budget per trip within their organisation – reflecting both the rise in the price of travel and the increase in average trip duration.
Graham Pope, Cvent’s vice president of international sales, said: “After the strong return of leisure and MICE travel, corporate travel managers are eager to get their teams back on the road but are keen to work with hotels that understand their needs and can be flexible given budget constraints.”
The survey found that buyers’ main priorities when choosing hotels and meeting venues (beyond their cost), was proximity to company locations (37 per cent), flexible terms (35 per cent), plus the ease of accessibility and venue familiarity (both 26 per cent).
Sustainability is also becoming more of a focus for buyers in Europe, with 26 per cent saying an “increased emphasis” on sustainable travel would shape their priorities during the next two years. While 29 per cent said they would “proactively seek out content and features” related to sustainability when sourcing hotels and venues.