Accor is receiving regional enquiries from smaller groups, while McKinsey research highlights sectors that need to travel, such as pharmaceuticals and manufacturing. Photo Credit: Unsplash/ GIl Ribeiro
As restrictions ease, corporate travellers are slowly getting back on the road, and Europe is hopeful for a brighter second half of 2021.
Germany for instance recently started welcoming UK visitors again, while domestic flights in France have now returned back to 80% of 2019 levels, and Spain and Nordics to around 50%, according to AMEX GBT data.
Still, corporate travel remains a key push for recovery. The sector accounted for about a fifth of all visits to London and a quarter to Milan, based on pre-pandemic numbers.
After voicing concern for business travel prospects earlier this year, Lufthansa's chief executive, Carsten Spohr, is now expecting a less drastic slump of around 10% in business trips after the pandemic.
"While smaller-than-usual crowds of summer tourists will provide some relief in the short-term, hotels are hoping the autumn will mark the start of a longer-term recovery,” says Jessica Jahns, head of EMEA hotels & hospitality research at real estate and investment management firm, JLL.
For Accor, CEO Sébastien Bazin notes that while he sees very "low visibility for corporate MICE activities" in the months of October, November, December — many small groups of between 30-80 people are enquiring from the region which is "clearly rebounding".
"We still don't know whether we're going to have large regional 300 or 400 people seminars. It might happen...in September...But I really believe we probably could buffer the loss of those large events to probably gathering hundreds of small groups of 30 to 50 people. I guess we'll know better by the end of September."
One definite group that will contribute to such large events, will be sectors that still need to travel, such as pharmaceuticals and manufacturing, according to McKinsey research.
For instance, Marriott is seeing strong demand for corporate travel within the energy sector, especially in Russia where bookings are heading closer to 2019 levels.
Recognising the rise in hybrid working preferences, Accor’s brands are also offering bedrooms as makeshift offices while the likes of CitizenM and London’s Point A Hotels are offering monthly subscriptions for overnight stays and access to workspaces.
Sustainability is also making an impact on companies' travel plans — such as Microsoft, which is being urged to limit its corporate travel to 2020 levels for good.
Travel tech firm Troop calculated that moving a 300-person event to a cluster format cut costs by 84% and reduced carbon emissions by 73%, as well as decreasing travel time by 72%.