New report from GBTA and Spotnana reveals journey supervisor sentiment on post-pandemic restoration, altering priorities, financial dangers, and balancing price financial savings and the traveler expertise.
ALEXANDRIA, VA and NEW YORK CITY – A majority of U.S. company journey consumers anticipate their firm’s enterprise journey to ramp up and return to pre-pandemic ranges by the tip of 2023. Despite issues about inflation and rising costs, just one in 5 journey managers say their firms have begun to restrict enterprise journey. Since the onset of the pandemic, nonetheless, calls for on journey managers’ time and priorities have grown, together with addressing traveler wants, conducting information evaluation, and the rising problem to stability price financial savings with the enterprise traveler expertise.
This is in line with a brand new report – “How Travel Managers Will Succeed in 2023” – from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), and Spotnana, the trendy infrastructure for the journey business. The report relies on survey responses from 151 U.S.-based company journey consumers and addresses key questions, together with when journey managers anticipate enterprise journey to return to pre-pandemic ranges, present and new priorities of their roles, and the journey program metrics they’re now monitoring.
“We wanted to look to those on the front lines who have been navigating all the changes happening in business travel for their expert insights and outlook on what might lie ahead. Tapping into the experiences and perspectives of travel managers provides valuable knowledge that can empower all stakeholders to optimize their business travel programs,” stated Johnny Thorsen, VP Partnerships, Spotnana.
“This latest research not only provides travel managers with beneficial benchmarking data and a glimpse into the priorities of their peers, but also crucial insights for suppliers and other industry stakeholders to make informed decisions and stay ahead as they plan for the future of business travel,” stated Suzanne Neufang, CEO, GBTA.
Here are some key highlights from the report:
- Recover continues on monitor. Travel managers largely anticipate most sorts of enterprise journey will attain pre-pandemic ranges by the tip of 2023, together with home enterprise journey (74%), exterior conferences (77%), convention/group journey (76%) and inside conferences (69%).One in 10 journey managers, nonetheless, say they don’t anticipate enterprise journey volumes to return till 2025 or later, citing inflation and rising costs as the highest issues, adopted by journey disruptions and a possible recession. Few really feel enterprise journey won’t ever return to pre-pandemic ranges, underscoring its significance for firms no matter journey kind.
- Business journey goes on as deliberate. Most firms (64%) say they’re unlikely to restrict enterprise journey, though many are taking a wait-and-see method and never severely contemplating limiting enterprise journey (36%). Only one in 5 journey managers say their firm (19%) is already implementing a plan to restrict enterprise journey.
- Balancing price and traveler priorities. Both journey managers (54%) and senior management (65%) are prioritizing price financial savings, however journey managers rank traveler expertise greater (51%) than executives (42%), making it tougher to acquire buy-in to focus past prices. The research highlights the elevated significance of addressing journey expertise metrics, particularly as enterprise traveler preferences proceed to evolve.
- A day within the lifetime of a journey supervisor now. When requested which duties they dedicate extra time to now in comparison with earlier than the pandemic, journey managers most continuously cite traveler communications / answering questions (72%) and overseeing their journey administration firm (TMC) relationship (59%). They additionally spend extra time on information evaluation (52%) and danger administration / traveler monitoring (42%). Few report they spend much less time on key journey program parts, demonstrating the rising complexity of managed journey packages.
- Benefits from collaboration and metrics. Travel managers should collaborate with quite a lot of stakeholders, probably the most generally cited being finance / accounting (69%), senior management/C-suite (49%), and danger administration/ safety (44%). Only three in 5 (59%), nonetheless, frequently share travel-related efficiency metrics with senior management, revealing a possibility for extra common reporting to exhibit the worth of a managed journey program and journey managers. Three in 5 journey managers (62%) say cost-focused metrics are crucial measures they may use to judge their program’s success in 2023. A notable quantity (32%) say journey experience-focused metrics would be the single most essential measure they may use to gauge success, nonetheless.
- Opportunities for companions. Asked about their prime TMC ache factors, journey managers mostly stated brokers / help (48%), information evaluation / reporting / dashboarding (37%), and the power of their TMC to ship a “customized” journey program (33%). Concerning their main OBT, journey managers establish end-user/traveler expertise (49%), the power to handle adjustments or cancellations (47%), and innovation (41%) as key ache factors.
Data assortment for the net survey of U.S.-based journey managers occurred from December 12, 2022, to January 3, 2023, with 151 qualifying responses acquired.
Tatiana is the information coordinator for TravelEach dayNews Media Network (traveldailynews.gr, traveldailynews.com and traveldailynews.asia). Her function consists of monitoring the tons of of stories sources of TravelEach dayNews Media Network and skimming crucial in line with our technique.
She holds a Bachelor’s diploma in Communication & Mass Media from Panteion University of Political & Social Studies of Athens and he or she has been editor and editor-in-chief in varied financial magazines and newspapers.