WiFi is the new breakfast for business travellers
3 min
New survey offers a window into how technology is changing the dynamic of the business trip
London – February 26, 2015 – Much has changed since air miles and upgrades were the peak of perks for business travellers, according to the first-ever Business and Technology Travel Study* by Egencia®, the business travel company of Expedia, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXPE). The results indicate that for travellers, mobile technology and constant connectivity are now the must-haves for productive and enjoyable business travel.
In a shift of priorities, free WiFi is now deemed twice as important (67 percent) as free breakfast (32 percent); and hot-spots are now more important than parking spots, with only 33 percent of travellers preferring free parking. Attitudes are also shifting about what a business trip should include. When asked what they like most about business travel, “seeing new places” and “having new experiences” account for 62 percent of the responses.
These findings reflect a growing convergence between business and leisure travel. As the two types of trips converge, industry experts predict that travellers will increasingly expect business travel to offer the same convenience and connectivity as a leisure travel experience. Mixing business with pleasure is not uncommon, with over half of respondents (54 percent) adding personal holidays on to their business trips in 2014.
The findings support previous Egencia insights, which see the traveller of tomorrow operating in an ever-more fluid space. They expect to move seamlessly from device to device; from online to offline and back again; from business to leisure and vice versa. Mobile is their personal assistant, the airport is their office and friends and family just a tap away.
“Travellers tell us they want easy, productive business trips, and an experience they can enjoy. The Egencia study helps companies think about how to better meet travellers’ demands through smart, intuitive technology and service,” said Graham Kingsmill, managing director of Egencia UK. “By meeting travellers’ needs, Egencia UK turned in solid results in 2014; growing significantly faster than the corporate travel market due to our focus on traveller satisfaction, which hit almost 90 percent last year.”
When asked what they felt about business travel, respondents answered that the two emotions they most associate with it are stress (48 percent) and exhaustion (41 percent). Contributing to that may be the fact that 40 percent of their travel time is deemed unproductive. When asked what helped with productivity, travellers preferred smartphones/mobile devices the most (61 percent), shortly followed by the use of a laptop (54 percent).
Despite the stress, travellers seem to be keeping their sense of humour. Asked what they wished they could do on business trips through social media, responses included:
- “Book a handsome guy to pick me up in a sports car and take me out.”
- “Tell people how much money I’ve made but I don’t want to seem like a t***.”
- “Get my work done by someone else.”
