Don’t Count on Business Travel Returning – Google Says It Will Not

By Robert McGarvey

It is tiresome – so many press releases and executive interviews spewed out by airlines and big hotel chains prognosticating that business travel will return to 2019 “normality” in 2022, probably by mid year.

These predictions are to fact based estimates as manure is to meatballs.

And I really like a good Italian American meatball (with the trinity of meats, please).

But I am no fan of fake news releases and Panglossian interviews.

Or fact free forecasts by business travel fanboys. You know who they are. Because they like travel they fervently believe everybody does. But it ain’t so.

Interlude: this blog has no comments on omicron because I have nothing useful to say other than the sooner the world gets vaccinated, the better.

Back to the present musings:

Now Google has weighed in and where data is concerned, Google is the motherlode.

That has always been the company’s business plan.  Hoover up every scrap of data, sort it, and draw fact based conclusions.  Google knows you are interested in travel to the Maldives over Christmas because you searched for exactly that 10 times this week. When Google talks it has data to back it up.

Here is Google’s prediction: Per Travel Weekly UK, “The decline in the volume of business travellers may continue beyond the pandemic, Google’s latest travel data suggests.”

Google’s Meg Elzea, global travel industry manager, added that while a majority of business travelers will be back on the road in 2022, companies and travelers are in fact “making changes.”  

Like what?  Per Travel Weekly, “She told Abta’s Travel Trends conference that Google expects business travel to return in the next year to ‘70% of pre-pandemic levels’.”

That sounds exactly on target to me.

Roughly one-third of pre-pandemic travel is not coming back and it isn’t because we have concluded t isn’t necessary and companies have decided they can save that money.

Even some air execs agree. For instance, Loganair boss Jonathan Hinkles speaking at the Airlines 2021 Conference,, said: “We are looking at a much lower level of business travel. The market will be smaller overall.  

He elaborated: “We’ve all moved on to Zoom or Teams and a proportion of that is going to stick.”

“He acknowledged that a certain amount of business will still have to be done in person, but maintained that ‘a proportion of the services sector is not going to revert back to the [business travel] ethos it had.’”

Personally, while I think the virtual meeting technology – Zoom and similar video calling tools – will erase some meetings, I think bigger factors are in play.

For me, at least, Zoom seems to be replacing oldfashioned phone calls and, frankly, I prefer the latter and often stick with a phone without video.  Why comb one’s hair when one has no need? But that is what Zoom is replacing: phone calls.

As for what is driving the reduction in meetings, I agree with Google’s research that pinpoints three triggers:  the global outcry over climate issues – and air travel is a prime offender, an employee search for better work life balance, and a corporate bean counter hunt for cost savings.

That’s a perfect storm that, I believe, will sideline just about that 30% of travel Google sees getting trimmed.

Many employees will be happier (substantial business travel is a factor in ill health as well as significant family issues in many households).  The CFOs (and Wall Street profit counters) will be overjoyed. And the planet will be in better shape if we cut back on travel.

What trips are not on the chopping block?  I see sales calls and customer service calls returning to normal when the present health issues vanish and a lot of the complicated and ever changing travel requirements (such as PCR tests) are simplified, or at the least regularized.  A world of fast changing rules is a world where we stay home.

But the day travel gets simplified will come, possibly in mid to late 2022.

What travel will be eliminated?

The kinds of trips that will be sidelined are the intramural, getting to know you get together, small meetings (often in Chicago or Dallas for big national companies).  

Oh, do I remember them,some from as far back as 1976 and were they tedious and pointless!  They doubtless still are.  Erase them from the calendar and nobody will cry.

The organization can also put out press releases – true ones – about decreased carbon load. And there can be whispers to Wall Street and investors about profit gains.  

Nope, that one-third of travel will be forever lost. And no one will much miss it.