Business travel has experienced a turbulent recovery this year — meetings and events are returning to form but new obstacles and ways of working stand in the way of a straightforward recovery to pre-pandemic levels.
Recovery forecasts are based on business travel spending catching back up to 2019 levels, which reached $1.4 trillion. According to GBTA’s 2022 Business Travel Index Outlook published last week, macroeconomic factors such as inflation, ongoing supply chain issues, and labor shortages, have pushed back the recovery timeline by 18 months into 2026, even as Covid-related concerns have abated.
The last Business Travel Index was released last November and anticipated that travel spending would recover fully by 2024, following a big surge in 2022. Unfortunately, that didn’t play out as exactly as expected, although 2022 has still seen a marked improvement over the past two years — global business travel spending is predicted to reach 65 percent of pre-pandemic levels this year.
“To understand the headwinds that have been impacting a more accelerated recovery for global business travel, all you have to do is look at the news headlines since the beginning of 2022,” said GBTA CEO Suzanne Neufang. “The factors impacting many industries around the world are also anticipated to impact global business travel recovery into 2025. The forecasted result is we’ll get close, but we won’t reach and exceed 2019’s pre-pandemic levels until 2026.”
GBTA’s research also included a survey of over 400 frequent business travelers and close to four dozen travel budget decision makers around the world, which confirmed that inflation and rising prices will have the most impact on travel volumes in the near future (noted by 73 percent of business travelers).
69 percent of business travelers are concerned about a possible recession, while 68 percent expect Covid to continue to impact their travel. However over 75 percent said they expect to travel for work more or much more next year than they did in 2022.
Business travel recovery continues to be impacted by geography, as some regions are recovering more quickly than others. North America and Western Europe are expected to experience the biggest recoveries between now and 2026, followed by Latin America and APAC, which has been held back this year by strict lockdowns in China.