As global workforces grapple with the disconnect of remote working, efficient business travel is a top priority – offering access to new markets, insights, and development opportunities.
However, it comes with complications, such as the threat of disruption, reluctance to travel, sustainability concerns, and access to travel opportunities.
These findings were revealed by new SAP Concur research of 3,750 travellers and 600 travel managers across global markets. This includes 850 respondents from the Asia-Pacific (APAC) countries of Australia, New Zealand, Japan, Korea, India, Singapore and Malaysia.
“The research suggests that APAC organisations need to better balance fluid and sometimes conflicting corporate and employee travel needs, stem employee reluctance to travel due to work-life balance concerns, and accommodate growing demands for sustainable travel,” said Sushant Jain, chief revenue officer, Asia Pacific & Japan, spend management, SAP.
“Measures businesses could take include improving the flexibility of their travel policies, and better harnessing emerging technology like AI to obtain data-based insights to streamline workflows, minimise disruption, cut cost and raise boost employee satisfaction.”
To ensure smooth running and maximise their investments in business travel, business leaders must understand its friction points.
The top takeaways from the new research include:
The threat of disruption
About 86% of APAC travellers have been forced to make last-minute changes in the past year because of unexpected delays, cancellations or the need to re-route.
Travellers have had enough of losing out on their personal time and critical career connections. About 82% opt to add ‘booking buffers’ to the start or end of their journey, or both, incorporating extra time to counteract unexpected schedule changes. This frustrating cycle discourages business travel altogether. To reduce traveller stress, organisations should consider allowing travellers extra turnaround time for each booking, private connecting transport, and adding features to travel management tools to allow easy rebooking when disruptions take place.
Reluctance to travel
APAC business travellers cite safety (42%) or political or social (36%) concerns about the destination as the most common reasons that would cause them to decline a business trip.
The trend of combining leisure and business, or bleisure, has gained popularity among business travellers, but recent cost-saving measures by companies threaten this balance. More than 28% of APAC companies are reducing the ability for employees to work remotely, while travelling for pleasure or combining personal travel with business trips.
While a majority (72%) of APAC business travellers stated that travel is critical for their career advancement, 22% of employees would decline a business trip if they could not extend it for personal travel, and 26% would also refuse if they couldn’t make adjustments outside of company policy.
The toss-up between sustainability and costs
Over a quarter (28%) of APAC business travellers are willing to decline a business trip due to the environmental impact or the inability to choose sustainable options, while a further 28% claim their company has cut back on paying more on sustainable travel options over the past 12 months.
Around 31% of APAC travellers say their company prioritises sustainable travel options, but one in three travel managers globally face difficulty booking travel as they are expected to provide more sustainable travel options without an adequate travel budget.
Unequal access to travel opportunities
Almost three-quarters (72%) of APAC business travellers say that travel is critical for their career advancement – but the same proportion feel they have not received equal opportunity to travel compared to their colleagues.
Staff cite reasons for unequal access such as their level of seniority (22%), age (18%) and gender (10%).
The need for AI solutions and education
Most APAC travellers (95%) are open to using AI-enabled options when arranging travel, but there is a prevailing “wait and see” attitude. Only 6% are comfortable using AI-enabled options currently.
As much as 90% of APAC business travellers want more company support, including assurances for personal data protection, potential biases, and protection from repercussions if AI-assisted bookings contravene company policy.
“While leaders won’t be able to solve travel disruption overnight, they can make it more manageable for staff,” said Jain. “By introducing measures to improve travel flexibility, training opportunities and next-generation technologies, APAC organisations can adapt to a challenging market and future-proof their business travel posture for the long term.”
The full new SAP Concur research with all the findings is available here. The APAC addendum is here.
