Business travelers are most concerned about quarantine measures after travel, followed by social distancing and cleanliness of their environment during trips. That’s the takeaway from a survey of 1,260 business travelers around the world conducted by BCD Travel’s Research and Innovation team.
Survey insights
COVID-19 seriously impacted business travel: 76% of the business travelers reported all business travel being suspended in their companies, while 23% said only essential travel was preserved. 7 in 10 had business trips planned during the time that COVID-19 started affecting their region. Of those trips, 67% were cancelled or postponed, 30% shifted to virtual meetings, and only 3% still took place.
The respondents also shared their views on various measures by travel suppliers to ensure safe travel in the future:
- Airport and airline measures: 9 in 10 rated frequent enhanced disinfection as extremely or very important, followed by new boarding procedures and empty seats on airplanes to accommodate social distancing.
- Hotel measures: Enhanced cleaning was top of the list, with 8 in 10 rating it extremely or very important. It is followed by online check-in and digital room keys, and the use of mandatory masks by hotel guests and employees.
- Regulatory measures: The use of contactless payment systems (67%) and infrared cameras to measure body temperature (58%) were rated as most important.
See all the survey results in this infographic.
How to take action
First, listen to your travelers’ concerns about future travel. Then incorporate your travelers’ priorities for health and safety measures into your sourcing strategies. For the time being, traveler safety will be more important than price. Last, but not least, it’s crucial to provide the right information at the right time. Communicating with travelers in real-time has never been more important, and the COVID-19 pandemic has shown that mobile is one of the most effective channels to do so.
BCD Travel has always been at the forefront of mobile innovation in the travel management company market. By using a mobile travel app such as BCD’s TripSource®, you can share relevant information to your travelers before, during and after their trip about safety measures and policy guidance, ensuring that they’re well prepared and feeling confident when they get back on the road again.
