Business travellers are coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic with a “more environmentally conscious mindset”, which could impact the return of trips to pre-Covid levels.
A panel of industry figures told delegates at the Business Travel Show Europe in London on Wednesday (29 June) that employees now had greater interest in travelling more sustainably.
Ami Taylor, senior director product strategy at SAP Concur, said its research showed that “other elements had crept into the decision” about whether to travel or not, including more travellers being willing to refuse a trip because they were feeling “burnt out” or could not travel sustainably on the route.
“They are willing to extend their travel for longer if they could travel more sustainably – by switching from plane to train where it’s feasible,” added Taylor.
The panel said it was “tough” to predict whether 2022 travel volumes would reach pre-pandemic levels with the cost of travel rising rapidly for many services.
There was also a “very mixed” picture among buyers: a snap poll found that 38 per cent had already seen air volumes surpass 2019 levels but 26 per cent were still at less than 50 per cent of pre-Covid flights.
Michael Riegel, general manager, Europe, at TripActions, said travel was “massively coming back” this year, although the type of travel had changed with remote workers now having to travel to meet up with their teams.
He added that sustainability was a “topic for years to come”, with clients already spending more time looking at their carbon emissions data on TripActions’ dashboards. The TMC has also been seeing “behavioural change” in clients using trains instead of flights for some journeys.
Buyers were also advised not to rely on 2019 price comparisons for flights and other services because inflation was pushing up rates across the industry.
Pascal Jungfer, CEO of Areka Consulting, said he expected around 30 per cent of travel volumes to go “off the table” as people relied more heavily on video calls instead.
He also advised companies not to impose “strict rules” about whether trips should go ahead or not.
“Imposing strict rules is difficult because it can be too rigid. At the end of the day, whether to travel or have people travel is a business decision – the decision to travel will always be a management decision,” said Jungfer. “But you need to have guidelines to help people.”