EVP 2022: American Express GBT watches for the advent of the "right business trip".

Chief Journey Officer, Mobility Management Company, Télétravel: for his 31st edition and its return to the classroom, theEVP 2022 has not been short of imaginative new concepts to try and name what the future will be. tomorrow's business travel. In the end, the lesson to be learned from this major trade fair for the business travel organised on Wednesday by American Express GBT However, the name is as simple as it is revealing of a new approach: the "just travel.

After these two years, companies are wiser about when a trip is really useful and when it isn't.

" It's not a question of not travelling, but of making the right journey "This is how Sophie Dautun, Head of Purchasing at the Crédit Agricole Group, sums it up. To put it plainly - if the idea needed clarifying - companies and business travellers now need to better identify the relevance, impact and, more prosaically, the famous "ROI" of each business trip, in the light of new criteria, or at least criteria whose hierarchy has necessarily evolved. Or at least criteria whose hierarchy has necessarily evolved. After these two years, there are greater wisdom on the part of companies to better determine when a trip is really useful or not "adds Pierre-François Brezes. The Vice-President of American Express Cartes sums up: " there are some journeys that we can no longer make, and I think that all of us in this room are happy not to have to make them. ".

This new, more demanding approach to mobility also seems to be shared by the French business travel market. For this EVP 2022 also marked the return of business travel barometer. It's a wealth of information (43 pages), figures, comparative analyses and more or less long-term forecasts, but perhaps the most relevant lesson here too lies in a disconcertingly simple observation. When asked why they would travel again, French business travellers give the following as their number one choice "a good reason to travel. The findings, crystal clear and unanimous (80%), are indicative of what post-crisis business travel will be - or perhaps already is. More than ever, the search for meaning in every trip. And, of course, against the backdrop of environmental issues, which are more pressing than ever under pressure from the new generations of business travellers. The EVP 2022 barometer shows that 47% of companies still do not measure their carbon emissions...

Back to pre-crisis volumes in 2024

However, the new frugality of business travellers does not seem incompatible with a return to pre-Covid travel volumes, according to the American Express GBT study. In fact, the TMC has set the following deadlines 2024 in the aviation sectorand even as early as 2023 for rail.

Even so, for equivalent volumes, the profile of journeys will certainly have changed. Of course, commercial motivations will continue to dominate. Yorick CharveriatVice President and General Manager France for American Express GBT, said: " In 99% of cases, we travel for business reasons. In 52% of cases to maintain and nurture their customer portfolio, and it's terribly important to see each other to nurture the relationship, the partnership, the trust. And in 47% of cases, to gain market share. ". But the scope of post-crisis business travel is changing under the impetus of the new report to the bureau and teleworking. Clearly, the commuting - that everyday" journeys which for teleworkers has adopted a much lower frequency - are becoming a new form of business travel. And the internal meetingsThis is a fast-growing area, with the aim of consolidating office relationships that have automatically tended to weaken. " At 68%, companies say they travel for strengthening human interactionand for building a genuine corporate culture "says Yorick Charveriat. " There are two ways of doing this: 42% for internal meetings, which is a real improvement on the 2019 barometer, as this index has risen by 27 points. And at 26% for seminars or incentives, and here again there is a very strong increase, of 13 points. ". This is a development that will now have to be managed within the company - in particular by a travel manager, a mobility manager or even a Chief Journey Officer - as the authors of the EVP barometer note: " Among the companies surveyed, 70% of travel managers believe that internal travel by employees will be important, as it will increase with the new teleworking conditions, but will have to be controlled. ".