A survey of almost 900
organisations in the charity, academic and not-for-profit sectors has found that
two thirds are resuming travel but admit they remain nervous about the safety of
countries and are concerned about the ever-changing regulations surrounding Covid.
Nine out of ten of those surveyed by
specialist travel management company Diversity Travel said that their organisation
had had a ‘rethink’ about travel strategy, with budgets being reduced for two
thirds of those and 71 per cent of organisations reducing the number of employees allowed to travel.
Two thirds of those surveyed say
they expect business travel to decline in frequency in the near future with
four per cent predicting zero business travel. Opinion is split almost 50/50 over whether
levels of travel will ever return to what they were pre-Covid.
The biggest barriers to travel are the differing levels of
quarantine required around the world (81 per cent), travel restrictions in
destination countries (79 per cent), risk of infection (65 per cent), higher
costs (47 per cent) and vaccination requirements (34 per cent).
Christopher Airey, managing director of Diversity Travel, said:
“For many of our customers, the pandemic has not stopped them and they have
continued to travel to some of the most dangerous parts of the world for
humanitarian reasons.
“They’ve needed to know that we were by their side, helping to
keep them safe and reacting to the changing circumstances brought on by the
pandemic."