Spanish companies are spending more and more on business travel, investment in travel is directly related to company results, and therefore the industry's growth is assured. In this sense, medium-sized companies are the most optimistic, while SMEs and the self-employed are slightly more pessimistic overall. Based on this trend, what characterises the business traveller? We will provide 5 key points for an in-depth understanding:
1. The duration of their travel is remarkable. The average length of business trips is 3.8 days, indicating that more and more companies are travelling to grow their business. Those who extend their stay by 2 weeks or more are reduced to a symbolic 3%, while 2 to 3 days is the norm, representing 57% of the total analysed by the Barometer. Therefore, we are dealing with a profile that cannot waste its time, and that has goals oriented to a specific objective: to arrive at the destination, meet, carry out the relevant negotiations and reach agreements in an efficient manner.
2. The aim is to optimise the investment in travel . Each business traveller spends an average of 743 euros per trip. This means that 46% of companies make an economic investment of between 100 and 500 euros, while only 12% spend more than 1,000 euros. Furthermore, the amount is directly proportional to the distance, with those shipments that take place within Europe being cheaper (370 euros). Spanish companies prioritise obtaining the best fare and securing the best price for their trips, above other attributes such as advice or information on expenses.
3. These aretypically managerial, technical and commercial . These are the three most mobile positions, ahead of disciplines such as managers (21%) and administrative (11%). 71% of managers in industry, 57% of technicians in construction and 57% of sales people in commerce travel. In SMEs with a turnover of less than 1 million euros, it is mainly managers who travel, a trend that is repeated in SMEs with a turnover of more than 50 million euros. In short, the most qualified profiles that make business decisions, and those specialised in negotiation techniques to obtain more clients, are the ones chosen to represent companies in this type of situation.
4. Priority demand for hotels (84%) and airline tickets (67%). Other products also have a specific weight, such as trains (52%), car hire (43%) or events and conferences (18%). 2 out of every 5 Spanish companies have special conditions for their trips, mainly in the hotel and air services mentioned above. 26% of these conditions are negotiated directly by the company, while 13% are in the hands of the contracted agency or supplier. From this we can extract that companies use all types of products, combining convenience with efficiency .
5. Spain and Europe: their main destinations. Business travellers tend to carry out their functions within the European continent, essentially seeking to open up new markets and new clients as close as possible, although the barometer also shows that Spanish companies are losing their fear of venturing into more unfamiliar distant territories. Some 83% of trips are within Spain, while 49% take place in EU countries, but companies are also increasing their travel to North America, South America, Asia and Africa respectively.
For Ángel García Butragueño, Co-Director of the BRAINTRUST Tourism Barometer, business travel is a sector in sustainable growth, but the supply needs to adapt to demand and look for new marketing and customer service formulas to guarantee its sustainability. Business travel is not consumed today as it was ten years ago, or in ten years' time, and only those companies that know how to visualise the future and offer different types of value propositions according to the customer profile will be able to survive in the future.
For José Manuel Brell, Co-Director of the BRAINTRUST Tourism Barometer, our objective at BRAINTRUST is to help Spanish companies to optimise their business travel spending, and to help all agents in the tourism industry to implement actions that enhance their business travel proposition and improve their sales and profitability. That is why we believe that the results of the Barometer, which we will analyse on an annual basis, are of great use to the entire business travel ecosystem in our country.
