The days of high-flying, big-spending business travel may be over for good.
As a new report by research company Morning Consult declared: Business travel will never return to normal.
Tighter corporate budgets and new ways of virtual working have permanently changed business travel, according to the report, titled “Business, but Not as Usual.”
The report says the demographics are changing too — business travelers are now younger and more likely to fly in economy class, with about half earning less than $50,000 a year.
“The old stereotypes of high-spending travelers splashing out for first-class tickets no longer hold water,” the report states.
A different business travel model is slowly but surely becoming entrenched, crystallizing a “new normal” for the industry, according to the report.
Businesses are cutting back on travel
While leisure travel continues to grow worldwide, business travel trips in the United States stagnated last year, according to Morning Consult.
Its survey of some 4,400 Americans showed business trips — both domestically and internationally — rose just 1% in 2022.
Compared with before the pandemic, fewer people are traveling for business — and those who are traveling are doing so less often, the report states.
Nearly one-third of respondents said their companies had changed their business travel policies, most commonly by reducing the frequency of business trips (60%) or by sending fewer employees on trips (56%). More than half (54%) said companies are more closely scrutinizing travel expenses too.
Trips highest on the chopping block include company retreats, trade shows and incentive travel, according to Morning Consult.
Survey respondents said they believed those changes were made to reduce costs, improve employee health and wellness, and because virtual meetings have eliminated the need for certain face-to-face ones.
Senior business leaders in the survey also pointed to sustainability, which the report noted is “a factor that is not tied to…
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