Ahead of the Business Travel Show, Diversity Travel surveyed its clients about their plans for a return to employee travel and what assistance they need to fulfil duty of care responsibilities.
Almost 900 UK organisations took part in the survey. The results found a dramatically changed landscape from 18 months ago, with two thirds of charities and academic institutions resuming travel but admitting they are ‘nervous’ about it.
As a result, the same number say they expect business travel to decline in frequency. The survey found that 4% of those surveyed predict zero business travel taking place in their organisations in the future. Overall, the results show an almost 50/50 split over whether levels of travel will return to what they were pre-Covid.
The pandemic has caused every charity and academic institution to change its approach to business travel, as nine in 10 of those surveyed said that their organisation had had a ‘rethink’ about travel strategy, with budgets being reduced for two-thirds of those and the numbers of employees allowed to travel being reduced at 71%.
This is down to ongoing unease about how safe it is to visit certain countries, with rules changing frequently. Of those surveyed, 35% are comfortable with sending staff on trips, versus 27% who admit to degrees of discomfort about the prospect.
However, the benefits clearly outweigh the nervousness. Organisations plan to send staff mostly to face to face meetings (73%) and conferences (73%), with 40% attending networking events and only 28% to exhibitions The biggest barriers to travel are the differing levels of quarantine required around the world (81%), travel restrictions in destination countries (79%, risk of infection (65%), higher costs (47%) and vaccination requirements (34%).
While it is expected that confidence will return as people get used to travelling again, more than half of those surveyed by Diversity Travel said that they now expect support and guidance around current Covid-19 protocols prior to travel.
The uncertainty and nervousness surrounding employers’ duty of care to send staff travelling again suggest that there will be more importance placed on the expertise of travel management companies to manage the process. Approximately three in four are expecting online travel booking to make the process simpler. A further one in five admit they would feel more confident if a third party managed the booking and itinerary process for travel trips.
Christopher Airey, managing director of Diversity Travel, said: “For many of our customers, the pandemic has not stopped them and they have continued to travel to some of the most dangerous parts of the world for humanitarian reasons. They have needed to know that we were by their side, helping to keep them safe and reacting to the changing circumstances brought on by the pandemic.
“Now as the world opens up to widespread business travel again, the expertise of the team at Diversity Travel is needed more than ever.That is why we have spent the time during the lockdowns working hard to improve what we do, launching new online tools, bringing new specialists into the business and updating the look and feel of the business to reflect the changes we hve made.”
