Travelling for conventions and conferences, seminars and training, is a trend leading the changing landscape of corporate travel.
This trend was revealed as the most common purpose of corporate travel in the Global Business Travel Association’s (GBTA) 2024 Business Travel Index Outlook, announced at the association’s convention in Atlanta, Georgia, this week.
The value of in-person meetings and events
And it’s a trend that Reed & Mackay CEO – UK, Europe & Global Events Julie Oliver believes is set to continue.
“Hybrid working is, in part, propelling the trend, as business travel and meetings and events play a huge role in generating a strong company culture, as well as both retaining and attracting talent,” Oliver says.
“Meetings and events need to be at the heart of a company’s people strategy and we saw this trend emerge two years ago as we were coming out of Covid. It’s one that sits behind our acquisition strategies in Spain, Sweden and Italy, where events business is strong, plus we’ve seen tremendous growth in the US and the UK in this area – C&IT recently named us the number one agency in its Top 50 Agencies for 2024.
“We’re also noticing the change in travel managers’ roles to encompass an increased meetings and events programme. Having strong, experienced business travel and meetings and events arms at Reed & Mackay means we can get the best out of travel budgets – saving clients’ time and money – and upgrading traveller wellbeing and risk mitigation.
“We have the vision to deliver all of the above, and that is via our continued investments in technology and new platforms.”
The rise of bleisure travel
In addition, GBTA’s survey highlighted that 40% of the business trips now taken ‘last three-to-five-night stays’, while 58% said they ‘extended work trips for leisure [bleisure] about the same (41%) or more frequently (17%) than previous years’.
Reed & Mackay Group CEO Fred Stratford agrees these trends will continue to evolve. “Many factors are behind the rise in bleisure travel’s popularity; being more sustainable travellers, the cost of travel and the convenience,” Stratford says. “People are certainly looking at the purpose of travel more holistically from an individual perspective. And corporates are encouraging this way of travelling too. The importance of traveller wellbeing is another key factor playing this trend.”
Delivering solutions to business travel challenges
The GBTA’s outlook for business travel and events overall was positive. However, several factors are still likely to impact business travel in the coming months. These range from ‘continued inflation challenges, geopolitical tensions and incidence of natural disaster’.
Reed & Mackay addresses the challenges of continued inflation in our recent whitepaper on saving money and adding value in business travel and events. Furthermore, clients across the globe have access to our in-house Incident Management Unit 24/7/365. In today’s geopolitical landscape, an in-house incident response, rather than outsourced service, is crucial. It means someone is always dedicated to constantly monitoring anything that could affect clients’ travel plans.
