Small Meetings and Blended Trips Propel Business Travel Comeback
Photo Caption: Small- and medium sized businesses have led the business travel recovery. A business traveler at an airport. Source: Artem Zhukov/Unsplash https://unsplash.com/photos/EzTeYrDT4hc
Skift Take
While it’s still too early to say when business travel could make a full recovery, smaller businesses drove some important trends in the first quarter.
When will business travel recover? Three years after the Covid-19 pandemic ground the travel industry to a halt, small- and medium-sized businesses and small meetings are driving an uneven recovery.
While it’s probably still too early to definitively say when — or if — business travel might fully recover to pre-pandemic levels, a look at first-quarter earnings from Delta, American, and Southwest airlines; Choice Hotels; Global Business Travel Group; HRS and Hertz shows one definitive trend. The role of small and medium-sized enterprises is catching the attention of analysts and travel executives as they gauge how the corporate travel segment is bouncing back.
Many of these companies are seeing the growth of smaller meetings and hybrid work environments. Some companies are seeing better yields as blended travel habits continue.
Spotlight on Smaller BusinessesA look across first-quarter travel earnings shows small- and medium sized enterprises squarely rooted in the dialogue between analysts and executives when analyzing corporate travel’s comeback.
A recent Deloitte analysis shows that a full recovery of business travel might not happen until late 2024 or 2025, calculating it would be a 10 percent - 20 percent smaller market in real terms when accounting for inflation. Growth next year would come from higher rates rather than the number of trips, it added.
So far, smaller businesses look to have recovered more quickly. But on the other hand, that could change next year as larger ones start to increase travel.
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