Report: Business Travel Increasing, With Caveats

Travel for events remains healthy, outpacing pre-Covid levels according to one new study, but attendee demands and expectations remain in flux.

The Mid-Year State of Events Report  (opens in a new tab), released last week by the marketing technology firm RainFocus, is based on a survey of approximately 100 events and meetings professionals. A majority of respondents (62 percent) said that attendance has increased in the past year, but that attendees are looking for opportunities for deeper engagement.

For instance, the average number of sessions attended at an event has decreased in the past year, from 5.3 to 4.2, suggesting that there’s a greater appetite for workshops and deep-dive sessions than traditional keynotes and breakouts. 

“Attendees are now often less interested in being ‘presented to’ and more interested in learning from people with whom they can relate,” the report says. “They want to know what has proven successful, which often requires thinking beyond the traditional single-speaker session breakout format.”

In response, the report says, meeting managers are building more unstructured time, with 60 percent of respondents saying they’ve increased networking opportunities. 

The urge for connection—as well as attendees’ closer attention to budgets—means that planners are also designing shorter and more localized events, according to the survey. More than a third of planners (36 percent) said they planned to increase the number of “ancillary events,” and nearly half (49 percent) said they planned to increase the number of webinars they host. 

One metric planners are noting is that sponsors see the value in those smaller-scale events. “Small events make it easier for sponsors to build the kind of relationships that eventually lead to closed deals,” the report says.

“Attendees want conversations, not just presentations. This data supports the shift that we had already been observing,” said JR Sherman, CEO of RainFocus in a release. “Leaning into that shift with smaller event formats, more meetings, and more intentional follow-ups benefits bottom lines.”

A report released last week by hotels.com  (opens in a new tab) echoed the findings around increased business travel: More than a third of Americans (37 percent) said they were traveling more for work than before Covid, spending an average of 10 nights a year on work trips. The report is based on a survey of 2,000 Americans who’ve traveled for work in the past three years.

Technology workers and tradespeople are the most frequent business travelers, with gen Z being the busiest business-travel generation. But whoever is traveling, according to the report, people are looking for more opportunities to combine business and leisure: Nearly two-thirds of respondents (63 percent) say they want business destinations that let them play tourist as well.

““Business travel is no longer just about getting from one meeting to the next,” said spokesperson Melanie Fish in a release. “Travelers want a hotel and destination that can keep up with both sides of their personality.”

Another recent report from the Global Business Travel Association suggested that despite concerns around rising costs, planners are seeing an interest in travel increasing, with 63 percent of respondents saying that “engagement is their primary success metric  (opens in a new tab).”