How much pleasure business travelers experience
A study by CWT, the travel management platform for companies and their employees, shows that for business travelers, the positives outweigh the negatives when traveling for work (92%) and leisure (82%).
Business travelers also have a lot of positive things to say about being on the road: Travelers from the Americas are the most enthusiastic, with 94 and 86 percent respectively, followed by travelers from the Asia-Pacific region with 93 and 84 percent, and European business travelers have scores of 89 and 77 percent, according to a study by travel management platform CWT. "Among the most exciting aspects associated with business travel, according to our findings, is discovering a new destination, meeting someone face-to-face for the first time, and networking with people who can help advance one's career and business, but also breaking out of routine is an important feature," says Niklas Andréen, executive VP and chief traveler experience officer at CWT. "It's important that we recognize the true value travelers find in their trips and identify what provides the most value when you're on the road."
Getting to know other people of great importance for business travelers
CWT's study also shows that for global travelers, building trust (38%), getting to know people better (32%) and increasing efficiency (31%) are among the top three benefits of getting to know people in person. For European business travelers, getting to know other people is the most important benefit (37%), with 36 percent of Americans ranking this as important, compared to 25 percent of Asia-Pacific travelers. Europeans also rate efficiency gains from meeting face-to-face the highest (34%), with Asia-Pacific travelers at 31 percent and Americans at 29 percent.
Bleisure trends
Another perk of business travel is the ability to extend a trip by a few vacation days. On average, respondents have extended their trip 2.4 times in the past twelve months. Here, Americans lead the way with 2.7, Europeans are right on average with 2.4, and travelers from Asia-Pacific are just below with 2.3. On average, business trips worldwide were extended by 4.3 days.
Another finding of the study is that companies are most supportive of Bleisure travel when employees handle their own personal expenses (76%), especially in Asia Pacific (79%) and then in the Americas (77%). Companies in Europe lag behind here at 70 percent.
Source: CWT
