During his recent conversation with Ryan Embree for the Hospitality Trailblazers series on the Suite Spot podcast, President and CEO Charles E. Oswald talked through his trends and predictions for 2024. Here, Charles expands on those thoughts.
Well past the second anniversary of the pandemic, business travel has yet to recover. There have been green shoots of hope seen in increasing weekday demand across the U.S. and U.K. as well as signs of recovery in traditionally business-focused urban hotels. However, consumer sentiment suggests a full return to pre-COVID levels of business travel may never occur. If there is full recovery in terms of volume, the composition of the segment will probably look different.
Consumers Warm to Business Travel but Pandemic-Era Caution Lingers
As Covid restrictions and quarantines continue to lift around the world, work-related trips are bouncing back in a big way in 2022.
Survey: 77% of Business Travelers, 64% of Workers Say Return of Business Travel More Important Than Ever
CWT has observed a significant increase in travel to and from several countries that have recently relaxed testing and quarantine requirements for international travel.
Despite the omicron setback for airlines, the longer-term prospects are looking bright.
The cases for, and, against a complete recovery are conceptual and not data driven because abstractions from historical data following previous shocks to travel demand are inappropriate since behaviors were unaffected then by significant technological advancements in telecommunications that altered business travel options.
Twenty months after international business travel came to an abrupt halt, it is starting up again. But bankers say there are several reasons why they will not be racking up the same number of air miles as before the pandemic.
The signs pointing to strong business transient and group travel in 2022 outweigh concerns over more COVID-19 waves and inconsistent return-to-office policies, executives say.