Gruppo La Meridiana is an expert in tourism and hotel industry. We know how important it is for you to understand future trends and to know what to expect on the market. Today we would like to present to you business travel trends for 2016. We hope those insights will help you prepare your business and gather as high as possible revenues in the coming year.

•    Even though online communication is prevalent, online meetings gain popularity and many matters that required a face to face meeting in the past can be arranged by email today, business travel is not threatened. In fact it will be booming in the coming year.
•    As research shows, businesses will keep investing in business travel and keep sending their employees on business trips. They believe a handshake and a smile during a face-to-face meeting is often worth much more than emails.
•    In fact, as recent study shows, most companies will be increasing their budget for business travel in 2016, as they have been doing in 2015.
•    However, what may be important for hotel owners, new studies show that business travel costs will be under a lot of scrutiny. Costs during travel will be under a lot of pressure, companies have become stricter with expanses and have even been using centralized booking systems.
•    Relevant to hotel owners, firms in 2016 will keep using hotels as their main accommodation for their employees. While for general population the popularity of sharing-economy firms have visibly increased, among business travel still hotels remain the standard accommodation. Businesses prefer if for higher perceived safety and accountability.
•    As far as the ways business travelers spend their time while on the road, it has been observed that those travelling for business will have less and less of personal time. With wi-fi available everywhere (even on board of the planes) employees devote more and more of their travel time to work and less and less is left for their private time.
•    Importantly, business travelers are content with the amount of travelling they did for work. A significant number is even hoping to do more business travel in the coming year, which is promising for the tourism / hotel industry.

These are some of the top insights gathered by our experts when it comes to business travel in 2016. For more information, more in-depth analysis of the future trends and more insights regarding other segments of travelers please contact Gruppo La Meridiana. We are happy to serve you with the latest travel research for 2016.