Skift Take
It’s hard to get a true sense of what future business travel demand will look like until international borders reopen and people can return to the office. But it is time to temper the optimism on any significant recovery happening by the end of the year. CEOs seem to finally get this.
The peak summer travel season is in the rearview mirror, and, in normal times, this is when travel companies could rely on corporate travel to accelerate and compensate for diminishing leisure travel demand.
But that was pre-pandemic.
The return of business travel demand remains among the most difficult sectors to predict, as the rise of new strains of the virus push back the return to the office for many major companies. The longer people stay away from the office, the longer companies have to realize cost efficiencies from work-from-home arrangements and a reduction in travel spending.
Some travel executives are more optimistic than others when it comes to the return of business travelers. But there is a swelling sentiment the pandemic’s grip on corporate travel is likely to remain well into next year. It’s hard to accept rosy outlooks when the U.S. Transportation Security Administration reported last week the lowest air passenger traffic seen since May.
Here’s what some of the leading travel CEOs predicted about the muted return of corporate travel through the end of this year and beyond.
Accor CEO Sebastien Bazin
“I really believe that we stand to lose about 20 percent or 25 percent of that entire [internatio
