Business travel at its ‘worst’ since 9/11? What?

Posted on 13. Aug, 2010 by Kat Schneider Fotheringham in Blog, Business Travel, Uncategorized, corporate housing, executive accommodations, international business travel

I have to say I am pretty surprised about yesterday’s report from the NBTA  (National Business Travel Association) that business travel is at its worst since 9/11.

I have been reading and reporting on a number of reports that say the contrary.  But before I send anyone into a panic here, let’s take a closer look at the report itself.

The NBTA’s report sponsored by VISA, says global business travel dropped 8.8 percent in 2009, they say the worst decline since 9/11.  So what’s behind the numbers?  While there is something of a recovery going on, it is not uniform across the board globally.  Essentially,  Asia, Latin American and the Middle East are expected to outpace travel growth in North America and Europe.  Not a big surprise for anyone there.

The only nations that showed significant increases in travel last year were China and other Asian markets (they posted a healthy increase of 8.5 percent) also happen to spend four times more on business travel spending than the United States.  Well, that makes sense.  news reports also seem to report the contentions of market analysts who say the economic recovery is indeed backsliding a bit.

Let’s not slam the brakes on our efforts to bolster our corporate housing and business travel enterprises just yet.  Consumers and corporations are still spending on the essentials.  And in this market, business travel to the hottest business markets on the globe to cement customer relationships are far too important for any organization to chuck just yet.

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