Business travel – Phased recovery, new equilibrium, or structural decline?

Out with the old, in with the new? Has there been a structural change in the way corporations approach, approve and value business travel? Do we expect business travel to ever come back to “normal” or has a new equilibrium been reached because of COVID-19? There’s no doubt that business travel has undergone a partial recovery, and the prospects for 2023 are better: businesses globally are planning for more travel, greater spending on business trips and expect they will slow ease some COVID-19 limitations on business travel. Yet, the pandemic has produced fundamental changes to the way that corporations operate and how people work. With technology a viable alternative to traditional meetings, sustainability changing attitudes to air travel and businesses ever conscious of the cost of travel, it’s also apparent that the business travel market has emerged from the pandemic, massively altered. Will business travel ever fully recover, or has COVID-19 produced a new equilibrium? Are businesses still willing to pay for business travel? What is the cost of NOT travelling for businesses? Is there a differentiation between business travel segments based on length of journey? Are air travel alternatives (particularly rail in Europe) now competitive enough in terms of time, product, cost and sustainability credentials to present a new threat to travel by air?