Tag Archives: Business travel

Sunny Sodhi, FCM Managing Director, India, said, “India is the 9th largest travel market in the world for business travel spending. It is the 4th largest market for the Asia Pacific region. In 2023, India’s business travel spending grew 24.7 per cent and we anticipate an 18.3 per cent increase in spending in 2024.”

At the inaugural Corporate Travel Summit, FCM Travel India said the country’s business travel industry is likely to increase up to US$38.2 billion in 2024. The market saw a remarkable 24.7 per cent hike in 2023, and experts expect an additional 18.3 per cent increase in 2024, reaching the value of US$38.2 billion.

During the WTM Global Travel Report response, Patricia Page-Champion, Hilton’s Senior Vice President and Global Commercial Director said, “Currently, 85% of business travel originates from small to medium businesses. And one in four individuals now incorporate leisure with work trips.” 

FCM Consulting along with CAPA & Envest Global, to unveil a new approach for clients to address their environmental issues when planning business travel in order to empower clients. Over 5,000 global businesses have signed up for the Science Based Targets initiative. Committed to taking initiatives for climate action & environmental impact alongside traditional financial priorities whilst making travel decisions. Glenn Thorsen, Sustainability Lead, FCM Consulting, believes that TMCs can provide deeper and more accurate analysis on travel impact with measurable benefits. He said, “As sustainability has risen to top of agenda, our business is step ahead in the evolution of emissions measurement”. Marco Navarria, Corporate Travel Community, Global Content & Marketing Director, CAPA said that CAPA and Envest Global remain committed to provide objective, data-driven assessment of  environmental sustainability performance of the world’s largest airlines, and being the single source of truth for key industry stakeholders. As companies become more sharp sustainability related issues. FCM’s team of experts have devised an industry-first service and also insights from CAPA-Envest Airline Sustainability Benchmarking Report.

This year, according to FCM Consulting’s latest Global Trends Report, Q1-2023 has seen the positive momentum of H2-2022 continue in both business and leisure travel with demand across the world forecast predicted as 85.5 per cent of 2019 levels. 

Business travel has made a strong comeback in India after two years post pandemic. OYO has recorded an 83% year-on-year uptick in bookings in business cities, between April and November this year. According to the company’s Business Travel Trends Report 2022, Delhi emerged as the most-booked business city. 

According to the latest poll of GBTA members, business travel is projected to reach pre-COVID 19 levels of US $1.4 trillion in revenue by 2024, business travel bookings are seeing an increase rebound month on month. However, travel managers cite staffing shortages and government policies and restrictions as having a significant impact on corporate travel programs. 

There’s more on the minds of the business travel industry these days beyond COVID-19 when it comes to the sector’s continued recovery. The return of global business travel remains strong – this month a majority of global travel managers surveyed report their companies are allowing domestic and international employee travel, and travel suppliers continue to cite increased travel bookings from their corporate customers. Conference attendance is also back – stronger than in 2019 as an overall share of business travel budgets. Current affairs and economic concerns, however, are also now in the mix and are having a significant impact on travel programs, according to industry stakeholders. And as the world starts traveling for work again, companies are also considering their policies for employees who aren’t quite ready to get back on the road or in the air. Suzanne Neufang, CEO, GBTA, said “As Covid becomes more manageable in many regions, companies and employees are getting back to traveling for business, fueled by the need to get back to business. We are now seeing, however, other factors beyond Covid coming into play that could affect the speed and trajectory of recovery for business travel as we head into the second half of 2022″.  

Videh Kumar Jaipuriar, CEO, Delhi International Airport Limited (DIAL), has said that after the resumption of flights from Delhi Airport, the percentage of business and Visiting Friends & Relatives (VFR) travel is same as pre-COVID levels. Elaborating further, he said, “According to pre-COVID data, 15-20% of travellers from Delhi were business passengers and 34-35% were VFR, while the balance were passengers travelling for holidays. In the current scenario, we have seen that ‘holidaying’ has been replaced by people who are doing ‘distress travel’, which means those who are stranded are travelling. A good sign is that business travel is back at the percentage level at which it was in the pre-COVID era, and VFR is also back at that level. That shows the confidence that passengers are showing in the SOPs that MoCA has come out with after consulting with all stakeholders.”