GBTA predicts 11.6% growth in business travel spending in 2017

Double digit business travel spending growth continues for India, despite fears of fallout from the country’s demonetisation efforts, according to the latest Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) BTI™ Outlook – India report. “India continues to position itself to become a world leader in business travel for decades to come,” said Gaurav Sundaram, GBTA India’s regional director. “Despite fears surrounding the demonetisation efforts, India saw a 10.9 percent growth in year-over-year business travel spending for the second quarter of 2016 – even higher than our last report projected.” The GBTA Foundation report forecasts 11.4 percent growth in business travel spending in 2016, followed by another 11.6 percent in 2017 – both increases over our previous forecast – reaching $36.8 billion USD. India continues to climb the world rankings of business travel markets, moving up five spots during the early 2000s to become the 10th largest global business travel market at the end of 2015. Forecasts predicted India would pass Brazil last year and will likely surpass both South Korea and Italy in 2017. GBTA projects India will become the 6th largest business travel market in the world by the end of 2019.
GBTA forecasts domestic business travel spending will continue to grow at consistently high rates, 11.8 percent in 2017, reaching $33.8 billion USD. India’s international outbound (IOB) business travel spending has shown subdued growth in the 5-6 percent per year range. GBTA’s IOB forecast for 2016 has been revised upward from 3.1 percent projected previously to 5.4 percent. It seems commodity prices may have finally found their footing and bottomed out, and the brightening prospects for increased trade activity, especially with the oil-rich MENA region, should help to push IOB spending forward by 9 percent in 2017.