Belgian business travelers rediscover Portugal and Greece attracts twice as many business travelers from Luxembourg
London is still the most frequented European city for business travelers from the Benelux, while the USA remains the most popular destination for intercontinental business travel. In Belgium, the amount of business trips to Tokyo rises with 2,3% after the introduction of a new direct nonstop line from Brussels. Spain and Greece are gaining popularity amongst business travelers from Luxembourg. Business travelers from the Netherlands are losing interest in the Netherlands Antilles. These are just a few results from the ‘Cities & Trends Report Benelux’ published by BCD Travel.
The complete ‘Cities and Trends Report’ with the most popular destinations for business travelers from the Benelux can be found here. In June, BCD Travel also published a European report, based on flight booking data for eight major business travel markets in Europe: Belgium, France, Germany, Ireland, Luxembourg, Switzerland, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.
Belgium: 10% drop for U.A.E.
Other than Vienna (+15.8%) replacing Munich at the fifth position, there was no change in the top five European destinations for Belgian business travelers from 2015 to 2016, which remains – in that order – London, Madrid, Milan and Geneva. The intercontinental numbers too remain the same in 2016 as in 2015: New York, Dubai, Singapore maintain their positions in the top 3. “We can see the impact of the new direct nonstop line to Tokyo since end of 2015 attracting extra business from Brussels”, explains Jean-François De Mol, Senior Director Inside Sales and Client Retention EMEA. Thanks to the 2.3% increase, Tokyo replaced Cairo in the intercontinental top five markets. Washington rises from fifth to fourth position.
Germany remains the most popular European country for business travelers departing from Belgium. Italy saw close to a 13% increase in trips and overtook the U.K. to take second place. U.K. and Spain are third and forth, while France and Switzerland switched to claim the fifth and sixth spots as did Austria and Denmark at eighth and ninth respectively. Poland remains number seven. “Also noteworthy is Portugal entering at the tenth position after a year-on-year rise of nearly 35%. It clearly shows the country’s revival after being hit hard by the economic crisis”, says De Mol.
The United States remains in pole position in intercontinental traffic. The U.A.E. saw a 10% drop and gave up its second rank to China in 2016. India, Singapore, Japan, Morocco, Canada Nigeria and Brazil complete the top 10. Canada made its debut in eighth place with a nearly 17% rise.
Luxembourg: Kenya enters top 10
Traffic from Luxembourg remained almost the same in 2016 compared to 2015. London, Geneva, Milan and Vienna maintain their positions in the Intra-European ranking while Madrid (+5%) replaced Amsterdam at number five. London and Toronto topped the European and intercontinental destination list. London’s top market status carries over as the U.K. stays at the top of the European country list, followed by Switzerland, Italy and Germany. “The lack of dynamic entrepreneurship that is said to be one of the causes of the Greek economic crisis, is not reflected in the business travel numbers from Luxembourg to Greece: the amount of booked tickets rose by more than 100%”, says Gary Coppers, Commercial & Operational Manager Luxembourg. As a result, Greece was catapulted to the tenth position.
The United States, Canada and China remain the most frequently flown intercontinental destination countries. Kenya (+71.4%) replaced Israel in the top 10.
The full report is available here.
Click here for the most popular destinations for European business travelers.
