The travel industry's pandemic interregnum period is over. It's time to travel

The State of Corporate Travel 2022

The past 18 months have profoundly impacted the corporate travel space, with rapid developments underway in areas such as the future of office and work culture, evolving company travel policies, employee safety, and the overall reorientation of business travel planning and programming in the post-pandemic environment. But as 2021 draws to a close, corporate travel and spend is recovering at a marked clip. So while there are still reasons for uncertainty, there are also plenty of signs of optimism as the industry looks ahead to 2022

One major area of interest is how quickly business travel will fully return. India domestic travel made a dramatic rebound in  Mid 2021, with travelers surging back to major urban centers that they had avoided during the height of the pandemic. Study from Inmarsat survey reveals that 91% of APAC airline passengers acknowledged that the pandemic has changed their long-term travel habits, consistent with last year’s survey results. However, over half (51%) would be confident to fly by the end of the year and 20% would happily catch a flight in the next month.

Amongst Indian respondents, 63% are confident of taking their next flight in the next six months, despite being among the most cautious passengers in the world (78%), significantly higher than the UK (25%) and Australia (33%). In terms of what could airlines and the travel industry do to make them feel more confident about flying, 68% of Indian passengers believed mandatory proof of vaccination for all passengers would be key, whereas 65% also expressed a preference for all airlines to follow the same hygiene practices.

Assuming this trend continues, domestic travel is on track to reach pre-pandemic levels as early as 2022. While lagging behind the leisure segment, business travel is projected to catch up at a similar pace.

Another area of evolution is with the products and services offered by corporate travel and spend platforms, which must continue to adapt to meet the changing needs of corporate travelers. This includes a growing focus on employee safety, along with new topics such as better management of employee spending and overall company expense management.

Amidst all of this, companies are bringing employees back to the office — and even, in industries such as banking, manufacturing, pharma requiring their return — while other sectors are navigating a future of remote work and team travel.

How these developments will impact business travel has yet to be determined. However, early data from the industry suggests that remote work’s impact on employee trips is not an all-or-nothing proposition. Some business travel may decline, while other new forms of work trips, like offsites and team meetups, may increase in frequency.

Of course, the environment remains dynamic, as markets and economies confront the spread of coronavirus variants across India and abroad. The lack of universal access to vaccines, compounded by a patchwork of divergent governmental policies and travel limits, also present near-term challenges for a globalized recovery.

Yet amid these curveballs, new technologies and innovations born during the pandemic will help alleviate challenges, while setting corporate travel on a reimagined and retooled course for the future. Within every crisis lie the seeds of opportunity; and as with any departure from the status quo, new assumptions and paradigms point to the definite silver linings playbook for business travel.