A third of corporate travel managers across Northern Europe believed their business travel programmes would recover within six months, driven primarily by domestic travel, according to Accor.
The company said that just 7% of corporates thought it would take longer than 12 months for their business travel programmes to get back on track, with 21% predicting it would take less than three months.
The most important criteria for corporates when selecting their preferred hotel supplier remained location (38%) followed by price (25%). Twenty-two per cent of those buying business travel ranked additional sanitary measures and Covid-19 protection as their top priority.
One in eight of corporates explicitly stated traveller welfare would be their top priority when selecting a preferred supplier in future. The vast majority (89%) of corporates believed their organisation would need to have an increased focus on duty of care as a result of the recent crisis, with 66% saying the pandemic would lead to a stricter approvals process for signing off travel requests.
Jonathan Pettifer, director, corporate sales & TMC partners, Accor UK & Ireland, said: “The hotel industry will be gratified to hear that corporates believe their business travel programmes will recover within 12 months, with many anticipating it will happen much quicker. Face to face interactions with clients and business partners are vital in many industries and we know there is significant pent up demand from corporates wanting to get their executives back engaging directly with key contacts. To support this process, it is vital the hospitality industry follows through on its commitment to safeguard traveller safety.”
The research highlighted that Covid-19 had disrupted the contract tendering process for business travel, events and meeting services, with 23% of those surveyed saying they had no request for proposal planned for 2021 and would seek to extend 2020 rates complemented by dynamic pricing to achieve best value. A further 11% of buyers planned to only review their top destinations via an RFP and extend most of their current rates into 2021. In addition, many buyers are planning to amend their RFP timing or process, with 21% expecting to run a full RFP or RFI as previously planned.