Sabre recently conducted both quantitative and qualitative surveys with airlines and travel agents across the globe. Gathering input from more than 500 respondents, in 8 languages and 20 countries, provided a robust view on the state of travel. One of the key travel trends that emerged was the new face of business travel. According to Sabre, business travel will not fully recover to pre-COVID-19 in the coming 1-3 years. People will combine work and leisure travel more. One of the respondents, Stuart McDonald from WestJet, said, “We are seeing from corporate travel in general questions like: what do we do in terms of greenhouse gas emissions and the sustainability components associated with that.” The study further underlined the fact that corporate travel will come, but the question is: what will it look like? Corporate culture needs to be rebuilt. In a world where people are working remotely, travel is the new office culture. Workspace flexibility creates new opportunities for travel companies to offer new products and services and create value. Policies, processes, and technologies need to evolve to take advantage of new opportunities. Similarly, in the top strategies they are pursuing, travel agencies are also increasing their focus on leisure clients, targeting higher-yield customers and investing in new technology to improve and better cater to their travelers’ demands.
