With almost the entire world under lockdown due to the global pandemic, there are wide speculations of the travel industry facing a serious hit. However, according to a recent survey conducted by FabHotels, about 80% of the 500 industry experts managing travel within their organisations feel that business travel is likely resume to normal levels within six months of the lockdown lifting.
The survey titled ‘State of Business Travel Post-COVID-19’ states that 58% of corporates expect a reduction of over 15% in their overall travel budgets, 19% expect a cut of less than 15% in their travel expenses, and 24% businesses expect travel budgets to remain the same post the lockdown.
Further, one-third of respondents stated that they wouldn’t move employees to lower-tier hotels to cut expenses, whereas the other two-third said they are expected to make this transition to reduce their travel costs.
The survey covered companies across sectors such as IT, FMCG and Pharmaceuticals. Nearly half of the respondents in this survey had employee strength of over 500 permanent employees. About 10% of the employees take work trips more than once a month at 45% surveyed organizations.
As expected, hygiene and sanitization at the hotels is going to be a decision-making criterion when corporates would decide on their hotel partners. Further, as many as 93% of respondents said they are likely to switch from non-branded to branded hotels once lockdown lifts for better cleanliness and sanitization requirements for their employees.
