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Neu-Isenburg, February 13, 2024
Even in times of cost savings and virtual meetings, business travel remains a key factor for European companies when it comes to maintaining relationships. This is shown by an analysis of the transactions for airline tickets processed by corporate payment expert AirPlus ("AirPlus Business Travel Index"). According to this, European companies booked around a fifth (19%) more tickets than in the previous year. Spending on airline tickets thus reached 76% of the 2019 level. Among the countries with the highest return of business travel was Switzerland, where companies spent 88% of their 2019 budget.
Companies were also willing to accept higher prices: a Business Class ticket cost an average of EUR 3867 in 2023, 7% more than in the previous year. However, the average price for Economy Class remained roughly the same at EUR 515 (2022: EUR 510). Further slight price decreases have also been observed in the past three months.
"Although economic conditions have recently become more challenging for many European companies, they continue to recognize the relevance of personal encounters and business travel," comments Oliver Wagner, CEO of AirPlus. "Especially in difficult times, personal encounters are crucial to building trusting relationships. Expenditure on business travel should therefore not be seen as a cost, but first and foremost as an important investment. We are currently seeing positive developments in the business travel market. While the USA continues to be in high demand as a travel destination, flight capacities to Asia are steadily increasing. We are therefore optimistic that Asia, and China in particular, will continue to approach pre-corona levels this year."
In the AirPlus Business Travel Index, AirPlus confirms other travel habits and trends of the recent year that are likely to continue to play an important role in 2024.
Travelers tend to fly Business Class more often than before the pandemic. Last year, 11.1% of tickets booked were in Business Class (2022: 10.7% / 2019: 8.8%).
The habit of combining a private trip with a business trip (also known as “bleisure”) was observed again in 2023: 15.8% of trips in 2023 started on a weekend, similar to 2022 (16.1%). In 2019, the share was 13.6%.
The average business trip lasted 5.9 days in 2023 and was therefore slightly shorter than in 2022 (6.2 days), but longer than in 2019 (5.4 days). The same applies to the proportion of short one-day trips, which amounted to 6.8% in 2023 (2022: 6.5% / 2019: 14.3%). In many companies, it is now common for employees to bundle various appointments into a single trip instead of taking several short trips – also for the sake of the environment.
In terms of travel destinations, however, the old favorites have returned to the top since the travel restrictions in China were eased. India remained in demand as a travel destination and landed in third place among intercontinental destinations.
About AirPlus International:
AirPlus International is a leading international provider of corporate payment solutions. 53,000 corporate customers rely on AirPlus for the payment and evaluation of their business trips and other purchasing services. The products and services are marketed worldwide under the AirPlus International brand. AirPlus is an issuer of the UATP and Mastercard card schemes. The AirPlus Company Account is the most successful billing account within the UATP. For more information, visit www.airplus.com .
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