" The business travel has picked up faster than we expected in 2022especially when you consider that we are still only providing around three quarters of our pre-pandemic transport plan. ". François Le Doze, Commercial Director ofEurostarwho calls himself " confident that this trend will continue after the summer period, when September is usually a key month for business travellers ". According to figures published on 18th July by the rail company, business travel has now reached 70% levels for 2019. And almost 8 out of 10 professionals (78%) plan to travel more or as much between the UK and Europe as they did before the health crisis. At least, this is what the rail company is seeing among its customers. Eurostar corporate customers with a travel account - the number of corporate accounts managed by Eurostar has increased by 40 % between 2019 and 2022 - but in general, the number of corporate travel accounts managed by Eurostar has increased by 40 % between 2019 and 2022. trend is more nuanced... In fact, business travellers are planning to travel more (37%) or the same amount (17%), but a significant proportion of professionals (41%) are expecting to reduce the number of trips they make...
When asked about the reasons for their current business trips, the professionals surveyed by Eurostar unsurprisingly pointed to customer meetings (67%), 37% of them mentioning the fact of work in another place, another office. This is followed by internal meetings in equivalent proportions (36%), ahead of supplier meetings (21%) and training (20%).
If this Eurostar study is to be believed, the forced use of video-conferencing solutions does not seem to have outweighed the need to meet. For 79% of business travellers, it remains important - or even very important (34%) - to continue to hold face-to-face meetings.
The impact of the crisis on the behaviour of business travellers is clearly based above all on the new flexibility granted to employees. The use of teleworking coupled with "revenge travel - this need to "make up for lost time" during the pandemic - would have boosted the bleisure. " Over the past two years, we have all enjoyed the flexible teleworking and many seek to protect the extra time for leisure or family that this allows "says François Le Doze. " For regular business travellers, the possibility of extending business trips to explore a new destination and spend time with friends and family is a priority this year. ". With figures to back it up, Eurostar's management is thus confirming the entry of the mixing business and leisure into a new dimension. According to the company's study, more than a quarter of business travellers feel the need to make up for time lost during the pandemic by extending their business trips. What's more, a large majority of them (86 %) are now planning to extend their trips as early as 2022. In fact, 85 % of business trips booked in May and June included an average stay of at least one night.
