TravelPerk Sees Corporate Travel Bouncing Back, But Not for All

14.06.2024 - 15:01 / skift.com / But Not

Corporate travel spending is on track to reach pre-pandemic levels by the end of this year, but the nature of who is spending looks very different.

“Some companies have cut travel because of interest rates, but the world continues to internationalize and people are more likely to do business with suppliers and customers all around the world, and that is very good for business travel,” Jean-Christophe Taunay-Bucalo, chief operating office at TravelPerk said in an interview this week.

The Barcelona-based business travel management company raised $104 million in a round earlier this year, bringing TravelPerk’s valuation to $1.4 billion.

Small- and medium-sized businesses have slowed corporate travel because of sluggish same-store sales amid sustained inflation and higher interest rates, Amex GBT executives said in a May call. SMBs are tightening their budgets while global multinationals continue to travel, they said. Marriott said in a recent call that business travel in the U.S. and Canada was led by strength in large corporates, while Hilton pointed to better results in small versus large corporates. 

The U.S. has proved to be the most resilient market, if often volatile. That’s why TravelPerk, which was founded in Barcelona in 2015, is focusing more than 50% of its investments in the U.S. Its strongest markets are the UK, U.S., Germany, Spain and France.

Corporate travel has been slower to recover compared to leisure travel, demand for which exploded coming out of the pandemic because of pent-up demand and an eagerness to escape after being cooped up for months on end. And while there has been a degree of blending between business and leisure trips, bleisure is not as big of a trend as some expected.

“We do see a little bit of it, but we actually don’t see it as much as we think,” Taunay-Bucalo said.

Part of the reason for that is simple: Not every destination is alluring. Taunay-Bucalo pointed to a big UK restaurant chain that flies people around the country to install kitchens in smaller cities and towns without major attractions.

”They do not want to stay where they are installing the kitchen,” he said. 

TravelPerk does offer bleisure options, “but it’s actually pretty small.”

“When we ask customers what they think about it, they’re like, ‘Yeah, it’s nice,’ but the reality is, the large majority of travel is in and out,” Taunay-Bucalo said. “There is a job to be done, and people want to be back home.” 

Ultimately, the TravelPerk exec called bleisure more “hype” than reality. 

However, other industry figures point to contrary data. A 2024 travel trends report from Mastercard showed longer stays in some cheaper destinations it chalked up to the flexibility of hybrid work.

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