Before the pandemic, the second place in the ranking of the most popular long-haul destinations was occupied by China, which had overtaken Russia. But today, the Asian country is in third place. The United Arab Emirates, which was not present among the top destinations in 2019, enters second position in the top 5 of the main corporate travel destinations. The winner remains the United States, while in fourth and fifth position we find India and Brazil respectively.
This is what emerges from data analysisAirPlus Business Travel Index, a data mining tool from AirPlus international – specialist in payment solutions for businesses – which processes millions of airline transactions carried out around the world.
According to the study, the rise in air fares does not stop, and ticket prices increase again. We spend more on continental and intercontinental flights with an average cost of 438 euros for the former and 2,192 euros for the latter. Over the same period of 2019, respectively 395 euros and 1,632 euros were spent.
Study also reports increase for first class travel (5,040 euros), Business Class (3,615 euros) and Economy (469 euros).
The average duration of intercontinental travel is increasing (13.6 versus 12.5 days). In addition, trips start more on weekends: more trips start on Friday (8.7% versus 7.9%) and Sunday (9.3% versus 8.4%), sign of the trend towards bleisure, i.e. the combination of a private trip and a business trip.
Intercontinental flights are booked further in advance (28.6 versus 23.1 days), First Class (32.6 versus 16.3 days) and Business Class (29.8 versus 23.2 days)
For European business travelers, Germany was clearly the most popular destination in the first half of the year : one trip in five was made to a German airport, primarily Frankfurt, followed by Munich and Hamburg.
