BCD Travel recently published its report " Cities & Trends Where, how and when do Europeans travel on business?" based in particular on airline tickets issued over the past year. These increased slightly in volume (+2%) compared with 2015, driven by intercontinental travel. The increase in the number of domestic flights (+1%) and intra-Europe (+1.5%) remains limited, while international flights flights from European airports literally took off in 2016 (+5.3%). However, these extra-European routes only account fora minority of business trips by air (17.6%), mostly destined for European (46.1%) or domestic (36.2%) destinations. The balance is more or less the same as in 2015.
Where are these European business travellers going? The same as in 2015, LondonVienna and Amsterdam occupy the top three places in the BCD Travel rankings. Amsterdam and Paris are in 4th and 5th place respectively, also unchanged. The main movement in the top 10 concerns Barcelona, which jumps from 9th to 6th place among European business travel destinations. Beyond the continent, New York and Shanghai attract the most European business travellers, with Dubai appearing on the third step of the podium. The ranking by country is dominated by the United Kingdom, Germany and Spain, with the United States coming out on top internationally ahead of China (2nd) and India (3rd).
As for the French market, the Cities & Trends report points out that air travel by French business travellers usually connect to airports in Germany, the UK, Spain, Italy and Switzerland.
Finally, BCD Travel also looked at the Seasonality of business travel by air. Unsurprisingly, the festive season is not the most favourable time for business travel, and neither is the summer slump...
