Three-quarters of a huge industry is a huge industry. With messy year-over-omicron first-quarter comparisons behind it, corporate travel has settled in to its traditional single-digit percentage growth pattern and is now at about 75 percent of its pre-pandemic self. It’s been there for most of 2023. American Express Global Business Travel on Tuesday said transactions…
Despite strong underlying demand, slowly recovering business travel, constrained capacity and rising costs, business airfares slipped in 2022. There are indications that fare growth in 2023 will be modest, at least in North America. American Express Global Business Travel in December said it anticipated a roughly 3 percent increase for corporate airfares within the region…
The business travel recovery is slipping as the year winds down. After a flattening in the spring and a pop in early fall, industry data in recent weeks showed declining volumes relative to 2019’s baseline. The rapid rebound in early 2022 is a memory and corporate volumes remain well below the peak from three years…
Some suppliers are describing corporate travel demand recovery trends beyond 80 percent relative to 2019, but a cross section of the landscape based on large-client data from Emburse is not so optimistic. Emburse for the quarter ending in September found that domestic U.S. air booking volume was down 36 percent versus 2019. Total domestic air…
The biggest knock on any discount program buyers secure with hotel properties and chains is that travelers can’t access preferred rates. That wastes the negotiating effort and eliminates some expected savings. According to Tripbam, for many enterprise clients, that’s been the case this year for chainwide deals. The reasons aren’t clear. Due to localized hotel…
There are a few ways to talk about business travel’s prospects. Some news articles quote sentiment surveys — do business folks plan to travel more or less, spend more or less on trips, loosen up on restrictions? Some highlight mid- to long-term forecasts by economists and the like. Many discuss uncertainty, but booking trends have…
Airfares are up, planes are full and some major U.S. carriers are reporting record revenues. At the same time, staffing shortages are wrecking customer service, dark economic clouds loom and some worry the recovery in corporate demand is decelerating. According to ARC, U.S. air bookings made by travel agencies that mainly serve commercial clients have…
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