European business travel volumes growing sharply says survey

The volume of European business tours jumped in the first half of 2010. The number of train tickets purchased by business travelers was up 7% as the numbers of flights prepared on business were up 3%.

In addition the numbers of hotel stays were up 13% and car rental bookings by 14% in the six months from January to June.

The figures are contained within the newly released AirPlus Business Travel Index for the first half of 2010. The survey also reports that whilst spend on rail, car rental and hotels has not raised, European companies spent 7% extra on flights in the first six months of 2010 than they did in the same period in 2009.

The number of domestic business flights fell by 6% but European business flights raised by 5% while long-haul, intercontinental flights raised by 24% in comparison to the first six months of 2009. In the first six months of 2010, 16.4% of all flights were intercontinental; in 2009, it was only 13.5%.

The cross-Europe surveys also establish that the percentage of business travelers flying business class has increased from 8% in January to 10% in June.

The AirPlus Business Travel Index is based on the study of more than 100 million business travel bookings per year completed by more than 33,000 companies worldwide.