Business Travelers View on the Economy

Recently, the first ever GBTA Global Business Traveler Sentiment Index™ in partnership with American Express revealed how business travelers across the globe feel about their travel experience and how those feelings affect their actual behaviors related to travel. A key finding of the study revealed travelers are optimistic about the health of their industry, though less hopeful about the overall state of their country’s economy.

With the exception of Mexico (67 percent), a minority of business travelers in the other countries surveyed believe the overall health of their economy is excellent (35 percent or less “agree” or “strongly agree”). In particular, travelers from Brazil (23 percent) and Canada (22 percent) are the most pessimistic.

On the other hand, travelers tend to be more optimistic about the health of their industry than their country’s economy. More specifically, at least half of travelers from Mexico (65 percent), the U.S. (54 percent), the UK (52 percent) and Canada (50 percent) feel the overall health of their industry is excellent, compared to less than half of travelers from Australia (46 percent), Germany (43 percent) Brazil (41 percent) and Japan (36 percent).

In addition, travelers are fairly confident in the financial performance of their companies. When asked whether their company is in excellent financial shape, a majority of travelers globally agree (55 percent or higher); however, only 47 percent of Brazilian travelers and 39 percent of Japanese travelers believe this to be the case.

Similarly, a majority of travelers across the countries surveyed (about 60 percent or more on average), except Japanese travelers (41 percent), “agree” or “strongly agree” their company’s management feels that business travel is very important to the overall financial performance of their company.

Although individual companies cannot do much to improve the health of the overall economy, communicating regularly with employees could help improve business traveler sentiment – knowledge is power.