Investing and Global Finance News

2014 Was a Great Year for Business Travel

Business travel a growth industry
Business travel a growth industry

The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) released its summary of business travel statistics for 2014 this week, and the news is good.  Business travel reached record levels, with about 484.4 million trips made creating some $292.2 billion in spending.

The summary, which takes the past trends and projects them into the future, predicts that 2015 will bring another record-producing year of business travel. The report, called the “GBTA BTI Outlook-United States 2015” is forecasting growth of about 6.2 percent this coming year. That translates to travel spending of about $310.2 billion and a trip volume to grow by 1.7 percent, to 490.4 million trips.

“2014 was a stabilizing year for US business travel, with continuous, sustained growth, despite a plethora of external issues internationally that have weighted down economies in Europe, Russia, and Asia,” said Michael W. McCormick, GBTA Executive Director and COO.

In contrast to individual business travel, group trips slightly declined in 2014. This coming year group trips are expected to do better, however.

According to the GBTA report, “Group trip volume will likely finish down 2.2 percent year-over-year, stabilizing after extraordinary growth in 2013. Group spend-per-trip, however, is on pace to rise to $715 in 2014, up from $660 in 2013. Both volume and spending are expected to rise in 2015 by 1.5 percent and 6.7 percent, respectively.”

Sorry, comments are closed for this post.