The Advantage Travel Partnership reveals latest ‘Global Business Travel Review’

The Advantage Travel Partnership, in collaboration with travel technology and data analyst specialist company Travelogix, has published the 8^th edition of its Global Business Travel Review.

The report features a wide range of trends and insights from top business travel industry experts from across the global travel ecosystem, including members of Advantage’s Global Business Travel Advisory Board. The latest Review also provides detailed analysis of 33.7m record of business travel bookings from 01 January 2019 to 31 December 2024 with an aggregated value of £16.5bn in transactional value, to support insights from travel professionals into traveller and booker behaviour and confidence.

The key findings of the Review revealed:

• New Transactions in 2024 outstripped those in 2023 by 15.5%.
• Monthly Transaction Volumes outperformed every month of 2023, except June, which saw a downturn of 15.48% compared to June 2023.
• Only January and February 2024 outperformed the Average Transaction Value compared to 2023, by 7.14% and 4.45%, respectively. All other months – March through to December – were down compared to 2023
• Advance Purchase across all air classes was 28.9 days in 2024 compared to 28.6 in 2023.
• The Average Trip Duration in 2024 was 4.6 days, compared to 6.9 days in 2023 – a 33.3% drop.
• Cabin Class Analysis: Economy class travel rose while the premium classes took a hit, continuing the trend we saw in 2023.

Looking ahead, it is set to be a pivotal year for the business travel sector as companies face significant economic challenges such as inflation, currency fluctuations, and rising tax (UK) as the National Insurance contributions and National Minimum Wage increase from April. In order to maintain a positive trajectory and to continue growth, businesses will need to manage the external pressures effectively and remain agile whilst adapting to any upcoming macroeconomic changes. Despite potential challenges in the business travel sector due to macroeconomic uncertainty fuelled by geopolitical events, the outlook for the year ahead remains positive. Forecasts predict year-on-year growth of 8-11 percent, indicating market confidence tempered by some caution.

Sharing ‘A Window to the World’, the report includes updates from members of the Advantage Global Network, a network of 96 partners in 83 countries, in South Africa, Hong Kong, Turkey, Brazil, Canada, and the USA.

In addition, this report offers sector insights from David Oppenheim Director of Global Sales at British Airways, global car rental company, Avis, and financial services company and B2B payments platform, WEX.