Business travel set for 75 per cent recovery in 2022

The corporate travel industry is forecast to recover to 75 per cent of pre-Covid transactions by the end of 2022, according to the latest update from Advantage Travel Partnership.

London-based Advantage, which is the second largest TMC network in Europe, said that its forecasts showed that bookings this year would be up by 83 per cent on 2021, although still 25 per cent lower than in 2019.

The figures were revealed in Advantage’s latest Global Business Travel Review 3.0 report, which has been compiled in collaboration with data specialist Travelogix.

The report also showed that average transaction value was up by 12.4 per cent this year to £333.32 compared to the last pre-pandemic year when it was £296.50. Transaction value had slumped to an average of just £106.12 in 2020 and £145.11 in 2021 as the pandemic kept most business travellers at home.

Guy Snelgar, global business travel director of the Advantage Travel Partnership, said the last six months had been a “story of recovery and growth”, despite many parts of the industry facing well-publicised disruption and capacity constraints.

Advantage said booking patterns had been “quite stable” since early summer after seeing significant volatility in the spring. Although the consortium added that there has yet to be a “return to traditional seasonality” for corporate travel.

Another trend is for travellers to take longer trips, with the average duration rising to 6.7 days compared with just 4.6 days in 2022, which Advantage said reflected corporates’ desire to make travel “more purposeful” post-Covid.