- The survey conducted by Harvard Business Review and Analytic Services included 587 business leaders.
- 58% of the respondents agree that having a strong travel culture brings valuable business results.
- Though, only 31% believe that they have a strong travel culture in place in their company.
- 77% of those with a strong travel culture work with a single travel management company (TMC).
A business travel culture – one where leaders and employees support corporate travel as a strategic investment with business value brings better results to companies, finds a new survey conducted by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services in association with Egencia®, business travel from Expedia Group. ™ 58 percent of the respondents of the survey confirm having this sort of strong travel culture.
Such a travel culture accords gains to five key business areas – market share, profitability, customer loyalty, retention, and employee satisfaction. The survey depicts that over the last year, companies with a strong travel culture had double the rate of improvement than companies with a weak travel culture across these key areas – customer loyalty and retention (50 percent vs 21 percent), market share (43 percent vs 22 percent) and employee satisfaction (35 percent vs 15 percent), and profitability (47 percent vs 29 percent).
While some business leaders have accepted strategic business travel in their work culture, less than half of the number of business leaders surveyed consider it as a priority. Of the ones that effectively manage business travel, a huge majority (77 percent) have a single travel company managing their business travel.
Only 31 percent of the 587 business leaders surveyed believe that their organization actually has a strong travel culture. A greater number of those surveyed view strategic investment in corporate travel as a cost to be minimized. Considering the benefits of in-person interactions with customers in today’s global marketplace that becomes possible through business travel, dodging it only makes companies lag behind in the competition.
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