Lines between business and leisure travel are blurring: survey

Published: 17 Sep 2008

Corporate travellers are curious and eager not just to go through the places they visit but actually enjoy them as much as business needs would allow. The industry as a whole must keep ahead of this behavioural curve to provide the service customers are now looking for.

This is a key finding from a research study, exploring the DNA of today's business traveller. The survey, initiated by Egencia, featured 2,400 respondents across France, Germany, the UK, the US and Canada. It was conducted by Strategy One between May and July 2008. In all, 40 percent of this sample were existing Egencia customers, whereas 60 percent were random business travellers.

Jean-Pierre Remy, President of Egencia said, "Today's corporate traveler has more demands placed on them than ever before. As a result, the lines between business and leisure travel are blurring as business travellers are driven by balancing personal and professional needs."

As per the findings, more than two out of three surveyed enjoy business trips and 85 percent state that traveling is a key reason why they like their current job. However, priorities for business travellers are very different and the research identified six key demographic or psychographic groups or `tribes' that unite corporate travellers globally.

Segmentation on the basis of the study is as follows:

· The largest group, made up of 39 percent of those surveyed, is the `experience-hungry' travellers. These people try to balance business travel with personal interests, scheduling in as much free time as possible so they can explore new destinations. In their briefcase, the experience-hungry traveler is most likely to carry a camera, a city map and, most importantly, a shopping list. This group was well represented by all countries surveyed, peaking with 44 percent of French business travellers.

· The 'hyper-connected' tribe comprises of 23 percent of corporate travellers. This group is most often married and although they don't necessarily enjoy traveling for work, they like the opportunity to develop business networks. Top managers are more likely to fall into this tribe than employees (30 percent of top management vs. 19 percent of employees). Not surprisingly this 'hyper-connected' tribe tends to carry a BlackBerry and a WiFi-ready laptop, and they are very focused on their business objectives. At the highest, more than one in four (28 percent) of US corporate travellers belong to this tribe. In other countries the rate declines with the lowest being Canada (19 percent).

· The third largest group is the 'cost-conscious' travellers. Making up 14 percent of travellers, this group is most likely to work for a company with less than 50 employees and they make sure that value for money is the key priority in every business trip. 17 percent of UK corporate travellers belong to this tribe; more than in any other country. The least cost conscious being the French, with only nine percent in this tribe.

In the remaining 24 percent of travellers, three smaller tribes have been identified.

Seven percent make up the home-focused group who enjoy traveling the least. 36 to 45 year-old corporate travellers are more likely to be in this tribe than any other age group. People with young children are also more likely to find themselves in this tribe.

Seasoned travellers (six percent) are the most frequent travellers, making around 25 business trips a year. For these people, travel is a core part of their work routine and half of them have assistants to help them organise trips.

Finally, the smallest, yet potentially the fastest growing tribe is the green travellers. At just four percent of those surveyed, this group only travel by plane if there is no other option and have frequently considered investing in projects to reduce CO2 emissions to offset their travel.

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