First analyses had hinted at what a current AirPlus study now confirms: the financial and economic crisis is influencing the number and quality of business trips to a pronounced degree. Every fifth American company could stop most of its travel activities in the future.

The economic crisis is affecting travel management in every second company in the US and Europe. US companies are especially affected. A survey carried out by AirPlus in February and now published shows that due to economic problems, 63% of all American companies are being forced to change both their travel management guidelines as well as their business travel regulations. The effects in Europe are somewhat less serious: here, 42% of the surveyed companies report that the crisis is affecting the number and extent of their business trips.

Over 500 travel managers in the US and eight European countries were questioned.

The AirPlus study substantiates the first survey and its predictions concerning the affects of the crisis on business travel.  But it also shows that travel managers in the US and in Europe react quite differently to the crisis: while European managers seek to save costs by booking cheaper flights and hotels, US managers are reacting by reducing travel activities. Looking for more economic conditions for business travels is of secondary importance to them.

Particularly serious is that 19% of the US companies surveyed said that they could imagine doing completely without business travel in the future. In Europe, only 2% of companies consider such a reaction to be a suitable response to the economic crisis.

Is business travel a “victim of the economic crisis”?