Business travel trends 2022

A few travel use cases underwent significant shifts from 2021 to 2022. Respondents rated client project work more replaceable by technology this time around, indicating that teams have gotten better at executing virtually. Meanwhile, industry conferences’ content was rated more dependent on face-to-face interaction. The return to live events that began in the fall of 2021 may have served as a reminder of the benefits of in-person learning. Finally, respondents rated leadership meetings as lower in importance in the 2022 survey versus 2021. It’s possible that leadership meetings were seen as more crucial because the pandemic was closer to its peak.

Conferences and events

Among respondents to this survey, meetings contracts constituted nearly one in seven dollars of prepandemic travel spend. But that figure only captures a portion of conferences’ impact. It leaves out travel for the purpose of attending events hosted by others. According to a 2020 Phocuswright study, meetings and conferences accounted for 18% of hotel gross bookings in 2019.6

Even harder to measure is the role live events play in industries, bringing together peers and partners for both structured and spontaneous interaction. Such interactions have been an early and lasting pandemic casualty.

The remainder of 2022 will likely be a lean year, but a key one, for industry conferences and events. Businesses are feeling their absence after two years of cancellations and online-only formats. Travel managers surveyed continue to place high value on the networking that takes place at these events, which they find ill-served by virtual formats. And when it comes to the content component of conferences, travel managers are less confident about tech replaceability, compared to our 2021 survey. Travel managers place conferences and exhibitions among the top five travel types (out of 10) that they expect to lead growth in 2022.

Still, many measures of short-term plans to spend on meetings and events indicate the industry will not quickly bounce back to its prepandemic size. Nearly three in four (72%) respondents say their companies will spend less on external conferences than in 2019 (figure 9). Companies are taking a rigorous approach, prioritizing the most constructive events, closely monitoring who and how many attend, and seeking events with a powerful mix of networking and content. They also are making adjustments to their own events. Since Q4 2021, more than half say they have canceled or postponed events, and more than half have adjusted downward their attendance expectations. A much smaller number are moving events to warmer locations and months, which could have a lasting effect on demand for conference venues.