Recent global economic woes have caused Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) to push back its expectations for a full recovery of the business travel segment from 2024 to 2026.
The business travel trade association’s 2022 GBTA Business Travel Index Outlook–Annual Global Report and Forecast (BTI), produced in partnership with Mastercard and released August 16, stated the ongoing recovery from the pandemic has encountered headwinds due to macroeconomic conditions that it said deteriorated rapidly in early 2022. The economic woes, the report maintains, are “impacting the timing, trajectory and pace of business travel’s recovery both globally and by region.”
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The association’s previous BTI, released in November 2021, predicted a surge in global business travel spend in 2022 that would reach full recovery to the pre-pandemic high water mark—$1.4 trillion—by 2024.
“To understand the headwinds that have been impacting a more accelerated recovery for global business travel, all you have to do is look at the news headlines since the beginning of 2022,” said Suzanne Neufang, CEO of GBTA, in a prepared statement announcing the BTI findings. “The factors impacting many industries around the world are also anticipated to impact global business travel recovery into 2025. The forecasted result is we’ll get close, but we won’t reach and exceed 2019’s pre-pandemic levels until 2026.”
Report Findings
The findings of the BTI report were released at the association’s 2022 GBTA Convention in San Diego, as were results of a survey of business travel spending and growth covering 73 countries and 44 industries.
The report included the following highlights provided by GBTA:
- Total spending on global business travel reached $697 billion in 2021, 5.5% above the pandemic-era low of 2020. Last year was nearly as challenging as 2020 for the global business travel industry, as it sought to carve out a “normal" following the COVID-19 pandemic. The industry gained back roughly $36 billion of the $770 billion lost in 2020.
- Recovery was short-circuited by the Omicron variant and spike in global COVID cases in late 2021 and early 2022. As case numbers began to retreat, business travel surged. Global business travel spending in 2022 is expected to advance 34% over 2021 levels to $933 billion, recovering to 65% of pre-pandemic levels.
- Recovery in 2022 was dependent upon and has been largely driven by improvement in the four factors of global business travel recovery—the global vaccination effort, national travel policies, business traveler sentiment and travel management policy—where conditions have improved significantly in the last six months.
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