Remote Work Isn’t Killing Business Travel, It’s Transforming It | BBC Worklife

Despite the days of in-person client meetings lessening, employees are still finding themselves setting out on corporate trips…just for new reasons.

The pandemic quickly made a lot of businesses see the futility in travelling across countries for client meetings. After being forced to work remotely, it became logical to continue conducting business meetings across international waters via platforms like Zoom and Teams – it was less time consuming, and a much cheaper alternative.

While this initially lead to a huge decline in airlines’ profits due to this drop in business travel, an August 2023 report from the Global Business Travel Association showed that the worldwide business-travel industry is expected to surpass its pre-pandemic spending level of $1.4tn (£1.1tn) in 2024 – two years earlier than some industry analysists predicted.

Data from American Express Global Business Travel may help explain why. In collaboration with Harvard Business Review, Amex GBT researchers surveyed 425 US professionals and found companies are changing why their workers are travelling. Instead of the pre-pandemic focus on sales-driven outings, business trips are now centred on what the report defines as “non-customer travel”: companies are meeting up internally. 

Read the full piece here: https://www.bbc.com/worklife/article/20240103-remote-work-business-travel