Business Travel Show

The Northstar organised Business Travel Show Europe took place at ExCeL London last week, seamlessly integrated with The Meetings Show and Travel Tech Show.

This was the second show at ExCel.  No figures have been published as yet but the halls and lecture theatres were busy, the gathering clearly now benefitting from easy access via the Elizabeth Line.

The opening day (Wednesday 29 June) panel of industry figures told delegates that employees now had greater interest in travelling more sustainably.

Ami Taylor, Senior Director Product Strategy, SAP Concur, said that its research showed that “other elements had crept into the decision” about whether to travel or not, including more travellers being willing to refuse a trip because they were feeling “burnt out” or could not travel sustainably on the route.

“They are willing to extend their travel for longer if they could travel more sustainably – by switching from plane to train where it’s feasible”, added Taylor.

The panel said that it was “tough” to predict whether 2022 travel volumes would reach pre-pandemic levels with the cost of travel rising rapidly for many services.

There was also a “very mixed” picture among buyers: a snap poll found that 38% had already seen air volumes surpass 2019 levels but 26% were still at less than 50% of pre-Covid flights.

Michael Riegel, General Manager, Europe, TripActions, said that travel was “massively coming back” this year, although the type of travel had changed with remote workers now having to travel to meet up with their teams.

He added that sustainability was a “topic for years to come”, with clients already spending more time looking at their carbon emissions data on TripActions’ dashboards. The travel management company (TMC) has also been seeing “behavioural change” in clients using trains instead of flights for some journeys.

Buyers were also advised not to rely on 2019 price comparisons for flights and other services because inflation was pushing up rates across the industry.

Pascal Jungfer, CEO, Areka Consulting, said that he expected around 30% of travel volumes to go “off the table” as people relied more heavily on video calls instead.

The combined Meetings Show has clearly expanded from previous years and is developing to become a minor version of the World Travel Market with such international exhibitors as Denmark, Israel and Portugal plus major hotel groups and many UK meetings providers.

The Travel Tech Show seemed reduced in size from its previous self and no IBM stage this year.  The lectures, incomprehensible to some, were well attended.

www.businesstravelshoweurope.com

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Norman Gage, United Kingdom

Hope it was worth the £400 entry fee.......