The introduction of travel corridors by the UK government combined
with essential travel to other destinations provided a sizeable boost to
business travel bookings made by Focus Travel Partnership TMCs in mid-July,
according to a recent survey.
Focus said 94 per cent of its partners reported booking
flights in its second Covid-19 Recovery Survey conducted between 6 and 17 July –
nearly ten percentage points higher than the 85 per cent who said the same
between 29 June and 3 July. Furthermore, accommodation bookings grew 19 percentage
points to 92 per cent, while rail bookings grew from 33 per cent to 50 per cent
and car hire and chauffer bookings were up 10 per cent to 58 per cent.
Overall, Europe was the top region for bookings, with 53 per
cent of travellers making trips across the continent. A further fifth were
taken for domestic trips within the UK and Ireland (which is not included as
part of Europe in the survey).
Even though the UK government has not established travel
corridors with much of the Middle East, Asia and North America, more than 600
people travelled to those regions in mid-July, according to survey respondents.
Nine per cent of those travelled to North America.
Focus said it believes many of these travellers could be essential
workers who are exempt from the UK’s quarantine requirement, as two-fifths of
those who made trips were in the construction, engineering, marine and offshore
energy sectors.
Seventy-one per cent of respondents said they believe their
clients will be making changes to their travel policies, whether in terms of
duty of care, budgets, or approval processes.
While 96 per cent of Focus Travel Partners said they had
started to receive refunds from airlines for tickets affected by Covid-19
cancellations, on average they are still waiting for £56,520 from suppliers.
Abby Penston, CEO of Focus Travel Partnership, said: “This
second Covid-19 Recovery Survey is encouraging. The number of bookings for each
sector is steadily growing. Business for our partners is still a fraction
compared to this time last year, but the landscape has changed, and business
travel is in recovery mode. The fact that so many of the bookings are for
destinations outside of the current air corridors reflects the globalised nature
of the UK economy and how complicated travel is right now. The knowledge,
insight and service our consultants can provide corporate clients is essential
to the recovery and smooth running of their businesses.”