Between employees and employers, sometimes-conflicting expectations and priorities can deter business travel or even cause attrition, as one survey suggests

Based on an April 2024 survey of 600 travel managers in six markets* and 3,750 business travellers in 24 markets^ on various aspects work-related travelling, a solution provider for the industry has disclosed what it considers five challenges for the region~.

First, about 86% of respondents from the group representing parts of APAC (Japan, Korea, India, Singapore, Malaysia) indicatedinstances of having had to make last-minute changes in the past year due to unexpected delays, cancellations or the need to re-route. About 82% indicated they have to opt to add ‘booking buffers’ to the start or end of their journey, or both, to cater for unexpected schedule changes.  

Second, 42% of travellers representing parts of APAC in the survey cited safety concerns (36% citing social concerns) surround their travel destination as the most common reasons to decline a business trip. More than 28% of these respondents cited their employers were reducing the ability for employees to work remotely while travelling for pleasure; or to combine personal travel with business trips. Also, 72% cited business travel as critical for their career advancement, while 22% indicated they would decline a business trip if they could not extend it for personal travel; 26% cited they would also refuse if they could not make adjustments outside of company policy.

Three more findings 

Third, 28% of the abovementioned APAC respondents cited they were willing to decline a business trip due to the environmental impact or the inability to choose sustainable options; a further 28% cited that their organization had cut back on paying more on sustainable travel options over the past 12 months. Also, around 31% indicated they their organization prioritizes sustainable travel options, with 33% of respondents in the entire travel managers group indicating they were facing difficulty booking travel due to the need to provide more sustainable travel options with the allocated travel budget.

Fourth, of the APAC business travellers that had indicated that accessto travel opportunities was critical for their career advancement, instances of perceived “unequal access” were cited as “level of seniority (22%)”, “age (18%)” and “gender” (10%).

Finally, 95% of the APAC travellers in the survey indicated they were open to using AI-enabled options on a “wait and see” basis when arranging travel. Some 6% indicated they were comfortable using AI-enabled options. Another aspect of AI adoption was that 90% of APAC respondents indicated they wanted more company support, including assurances for personal data protection, potential biases, and protection from repercussions if AI-assisted bookings were found to “contravene company policy”.

Employers can take notes
According to Sushant Jain, Chief Revenue Officer (Asia Pacific & Japan, Spend Management), SAP, the firm that commissioned the survey, the fluid and sometimes conflicting corporate and employee travel needs can “stem employee reluctance to travel due to work-life balance concerns.”

Jain suggested that businesses could improve the flexibility of their travel policies, explore technologies to obtain data-driven insights to streamline workflows, minimize disruption, cut cost and boost employee satisfaction to “adapt to a challenging market and future-proof their business travel posture for the long term.” 

*defined as those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses in Germany, Canada, Japan, Australia and New Zealand), the UK and the US

^including the US, Canada, the UK, Germany, France; Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland, Italy, Spain, Australia, New Zealand, the UAE and Saudi Arabia; Mexico, Brazil, South Africa, Portugal, Switzerland, and Austria, ~with 850 respondents from Japan, Korea, India, Singapore, Malaysia representing parts of the Asia Pacific region