packing for business travel

By Jeff Domansky, May 4, 2021

Despite the impact of Covid 19, 84% of business travelers are keen to travel with proper pandemic protection.

Amadeus logo

New research shows 93% of business travelers reduced travel for work by 60% or more during the past year. Those over age 55 reduced business travel by 70%, according to a new report from Amadeus.

“Our findings show that travelers are eager to travel if the right safety measures are in place, which is hugely encouraging for the business travel industry. While vaccination will take time, there is a range of steps corporations and travel companies can take now to protect and reassure travelers,” said Rudy Daniello, Executive Vice President Corporations, Amadeus.

Top business traveler safety requirements?

Covid travel safety

Frequent travelers highlighted five key safe travel measures, suggesting the travel industry and governments should work together to implement new COVID-19 safe measures, including information sharing, contactless payment technology, and comprehensive medical insurance.

Among the most important safety measures highlighted were COVID-19 medical insurance (8.4/10), up-to-date health and travel restriction information about destinations (8.4), hygiene information for hotel and office (8.1), the ability to pay with contactless technology (8.1), and mandatory tests or vaccine certification before boarding (7.9).

The survey covered business travelers in France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, the US, and the UK who took at least three business trips in 2019.

New payments & business tools growing despite barriers

expense accounts

The Amadeus report reflects changes in the needs of modern business travelers. Only one-third of business travelers found their company’s expense process easy and said report filing took an average of two hours or more.

A surprising 38% considered not traveling for business because they had to pay expenses out of their pocket. These days, with the many payments and travel expense management tools available, this makes no business sense.

“Innovations in mobile payment and expenses are coming online that allow travelers to pay contactlessly using their mobile, directly from the company bank account. This removes the need to touch payment terminals or handle paper receipts while expense reporting is automated in the background,” Daniello said.

Travel & expense headaches

Business travelers voiced a long list of complaints about their company’s travel procedures. 31% of travelers said it takes them more than three hours to file expense reports. Other headaches included collecting receipts, and travelers said they lost an average of $470 because of lost receipts every year.

expense management headaches

Waiting an average of 4.1 weeks to be reimbursed in companies with more than 1000 employees and 3.5 weeks in smaller companies with fewer than 1000 employees rankled travelers. Percent said they waited between four and six weeks for reimbursement, and 9% waited between six and eight weeks. Not acceptable.

Other complaints included entering data into a system, obtaining management approval for travel and expenses, and answering questions about travel expenses. Sound familiar?

The report highlighted some of the new travel and expense management tools available to manage expenses securely, more efficiently, and faster:

  • virtual credit cards can securely connect business travel payments and costs to the company bank account; 79% of millennials said they would use it if available
  • contactless payments by mobile wallets increase safety and payment security
  • improved business expense reporting enables better enforcement of corporate travel policies, more leverage to negotiate preferred supplier discounts, and faster, more accurate reconciliation and reporting.

“Travelers can also access information relating to travel restrictions, COVID-19 prevalence, and hygiene factors at the point of booking. While it may be difficult now, technological innovations can make business travel even better than it was in 2019,” Daniello added.

Business travelers are keen to travel again

Amadeus found 87% of business travelers missed traveling for business for several reasons:

business entertainment
  • missed seeing colleagues and customers face-to-face (55%)
  • enjoy sharing ideas from face-to-face meetings (49%)
  • miss the social aspects of business such as sharing a drink or meal (47%)
  • enjoy the process of travel, flights, and hotels (44%)
  • closing deals in contracts in person (42%)
  • experiencing other cultures while traveling for business (41%).

As vaccination levels increase and innovative corporate strategies reduce the friction of expense payments and reporting, the travel, hospitality, and entertainment industry could soon be firing on all cylinders.

The big challenge for business is determining what’s “essential” business travel with the many virtual meeting and work-from-home tools now available.

More detail on rebuilding business traveler confidence and the tools to support safe travel is available in Amadeus’ new report: ‘Safer, easier and better: Rebuilding business travel with modern payment and expense’ here.

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