At a time when business travel in Europe is once again being hampered by the test measures or even containmentIt's hard to imagine what this year will be like. 2022 for business travellers and their travel managers. However, the Institut du Travel Management (ITM) has tried its hand at this exercise, based on testimonies collected at the end of November fromaround one hundred travel buyers, managers and executives business in the region EMEA. Logically, these travel management professionals are expecting to see their travel budgets slashed: 48% of them are forecasting a reduction of half compared to the previous year...
At a time when business travel in Europe is once again being hampered by the test measures or even containmentIt's hard to imagine what this year will be like. 2022 for business travellers and their travel managers. However, the Institut du Travel Management (ITM) has tried its hand at this exercise, based on testimonies collected at the end of November fromaround one hundred travel buyers, managers and executives business in the region EMEA. Logically, these travel management professionals are expecting their travel budgets to shrink: 48% of them are forecasting a 50% reduction compared to 2019. Visit internal meetings will be among the main savings levers activated next year: a quarter (25%) of travel budgets will be allocated to this, compared with 50% in 2019.
However, the return of business travel is the number 1 priority for the travel managers surveyed. This is followed by duty of carethe well-being of travellers and the introduction of sustainable practices. As for budget travel, it falls two places in the ITM rankings, and will rank sixth in the 2022 agenda for travel buyers.
The study published by ITM also compiles the challenges facing travel managers over the next twelve months. And, unsurprisingly, it is the regulatory environment that is the most daunting. The complexity of border restrictions is cited by the largest number of travel managers, along with quarantine and testing protocols. " 88% of respondents believe that this factor would be the first to have a negative impact on their confidence in business travel volumes next year "say the authors of the study.
Furthermore, the crisis does seem to have had a significant impact on the competition between air and rail. Indeed, according to the results published by ITM, a comfortable majority of travel buyers (58%) anticipate a transfer from air to rail in 2022. This trend was already observed last year, but then their proportion was limited to a third of those surveyed (33%).
