Amadeus study finds High Levels of Confidence about the Return of Business Travel

Business travellers are becoming more confident about travel according to a survey conducted by Amadeus. The Spanish travel technology company recently surveyed 1,400 regular business travellers and found 84% of business travellers would be comfortable to travel now, rising to 87% for frequent flyers.

The desire to travel for work is primarily driven by human factors, with travellers most missing ‘seeing customers and colleagues face-to-face’ and ‘sharing ideas at in-person meetings’, closely followed by social aspects like ‘sharing a meal’.

When it comes to rebuilding confidence, frequent travellers highlighted the following five safe travel measures:

• COVID-19 medical insurance
• Up-to-date health and travel restriction information about destination
• Hygiene information for hotel / office
• Ability to pay using contactless methods
• Mandatory test or vaccine certificate prior to boarding

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

He added: “New innovations in mobile payment and expense are coming online that allow travellers to pay contactlessly using their mobile, directly from the company bank account. This removes the need to touch payment terminals or handle paper receipts whilst expense reporting is automated in the background. Travellers 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.”

About the research

Research was conducted during January 2021 with 1,400 people that travelled at least three times for business in 2019. ‘Frequent travellers’ refers to those who travelled more than 15 times for business during 2019. Respondents were drawn in equal numbers from seven representative global markets: France, Germany, India, Japan, Spain, USA and UK. Research was conducted by market research firm Opinium.