World Travel & Tourism Council

Business Travel Research

Business Travel – a Catalyst of Economic performance

Business travel has accounted for one third of growth in global trade over the past decade, improved global corporate productivity tenfold and created millions of jobs worldwide, according to this special study undertaken by Oxford Economics on behalf of WTTC.

The research, launched in May 2011 showed that:

• Growth in business travel from 2000 - 2007 helped create over 40 million jobs through increases in trade and productivity representing 20% of the growth in global employment over the same period.
• Global business travellers believe that 50% of their prospective customers are converted to new customers with an in-person meeting compared with 31% without such a meeting.
• If business travel were cut by 25% for two consecutive years, global GDP would be 5% lower than would otherwise be the case after a five-year period resulting in 30 million fewer jobs than forecast under baseline assumptions for the same period - an average loss of 1% of global employment.
• Business travel improves corporate productivity yielding a return on investment of 10:1. 
• Business travel is integral to international trade and it is estimated that one third of global trade over the past decade has been driven by international business travel.

A special focus on Asia was launched in October 2011. This showed that Business Travel is even more important in terms of driving economic growth in Asia than in other regions of the world.

WTTC would like to thank the following for their sponsorship of this research: