Despite news that organizations are tightening their belts, the Q1 2023 “SpendSmart Travel Trends” report by Emburse shows that these macroeconomic concerns have not dampened the momentum of the business travel industry. The quartler report by the spend management company tracks how much organizations spend on travel, as well as trends for booking volume and trip length, and compares it to the previous year and the previous quarter.
In Q1 2023, business travel measures changed as follows:
- Volume of domestic flights booked – 52 percent up from Q1 2022 and 29 percent up from Q4 2022
- Amount spent on domestic flights – 85 percent up from Q1 2022 and 42 percent up from Q4 2022
- Volume of international flights booked – 178 percent up from Q1 2022 and 1 percent up from Q4 2022
- Amount spent on international flights – 285 percent up from Q1 2022 and 21 percent up from Q4 2022
- Volume of car rentals booked – 53 percent up from Q1 2022 and 22 percent up from Q4 2022
- Amount spent on car rentals – 60 percent up from Q1 2022 and 21 percent up from Q4 2022
- Volume of hotel reservations booked – 49 percent up from Q1 2022 and 5 percent up from Q4 2022
- Amount spent on hotel reservations – 59 percent up from Q1 2022 and 11 percent up from Q4 2022
What it means: The number of domestic and international flights, hotel and car rentals, and spend across the board all increased as industry events returned in full and executives sought a sense of normalcy in the new year. While international flight volume only grew by 1 percent against last quarter, that follows a 998 percent annual increase in the quarter prior, indicating that organizations are continuing to spend on international travel.
Emburse plans to continue monitoring these figures and updating them quarterly. The next “SpendSmart Travel Trends” report will examine Q2 2023 and will be available in July.
For more information, visit www.emburse.com.
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