Is Business Travel Finally Coming Back?

Leisure travel has long been back and is expected to produce record-setting numbers, especially air travel, this summer.

International travel is back, as countries around the world drop their COVID-19 restrictions and protocols.

But business travel has been the last to return since the pandemic hit almost two-and-a-half years ago, with companies more or less forced to pull employees off the road – and then finding how easy it was to conduct meetings via Zoom or Google Meet.

Finally, that appears to be changing back.

According to a story from Bloomberg News, data mined from four major companies that handle corporate travel say purchases for business- and premium-class seating on flights are starting to rise again.

“Business travelers are coming back,” Andrew Crawley, chief commercial officer for American Express Global Business Travel, told Bloomberg.

“I think this quarter we’ll be able to put to bed the whole question: ‘Is business travel coming back?’” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told Bloomberg Television. “That business travel is recovering so rapidly makes us feel really, really confident.”

And it should.

Business travel is a lucrative part of an airline’s bottom line. More people fly business consistently than do leisure travelers, and they end up sitting in first-, business- or premium-class seating.

But people are also apparently willing to make that kind of investment even for leisure trips.

“People are prepared to trade up now for space,” Etihad Airways CEO Tony Douglas said on Bloomberg TV, noting that 90 percent of his business-class seats are filled with leisure travelers. “It’s revenge tourism.”