London has been overtaken by Monaco, Basel and Paris and is now in sixth place in Europe’s list of most expensive business travel destinations (it was third last year). The capital has also dropped out of the world’s top 10, according to a new report by global mobility experts ECA International. ECA’s 2017/2018 Daily Rates Report records prices between September and December 2017.
Geneva is the most expensive city in Europe for business travel for a fourth year in a row, as Swiss cities continue to dominate the top 10. On average, the total cost of a standard business trip to Geneva is £554 a day, compared to £448 in London.
New York is the only location in the world more expensive for business travel than Geneva, and average cost for the business visitor is put at £611 a day.
Other UK cities all dropped down the rankings compared to last year.
“Switzerland has always been an expensive nation for business travel, and this year is no different as the Swiss franc has performed very strongly,” said Simon Franklin, daily rates manager at ECA International, commenting on the new report findings.
Updated annually, ECA’s Daily Rates report reviews the average costs for hotel accommodation – which makes up the bulk of any daily allowance – as well as meals, drinks, laundry, taxi transport and daily essentials.
The information can then be used by companies to determine daily expense allowances for staff undertaking international business travel.
Franklin added: “While the price of business travel to London has remained relatively static over the past few years, the strong performance of the euro in the past year has seen costs in other cities such as Paris and Monaco overtake the UK capital. The cost of business travel in the UK overall has continued to fall, with every surveyed UK location seeing a drop in the table.”
“Aberdeen especially illustrates the sudden drop in cost for business travel to the UK, falling from 13th to 39th in the European rankings in just two years. This has been exacerbated by the recent downturn in the oil and gas industry which has led to a reduction in demand for business travel to the area, as well as having an impact on the local economy.”
