Sponsored by SAP Concur
In this episode we’re going to discuss the world of business travel. Whether you travel for business yourself, you oversee a team of travellers, or play a role in executing travel for your organization, this episode is for you.
We are going to discuss what was revealed in recent research as well as unpack ways to address common pain points in the business travel experience.
Meet Our Guest: Jen Moyse
Joining us today is Jen Moyse from SAP Concur.
Jen Moyse is vice president of product and head of UX at SAP Concur. She’s held leadership positions for SAP Concur in TripIt, a travel organizing app from SAP Concur for the past, get this, does everybody have their seat belts on? Past 10 years. She is extremely knowledgeable and we’re lucky to have her here.
The Research
To begin, please share a bit about the SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey. What are you generally looking to uncover in this important research?
The SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey is something we conduct every year, this is actually our sixth year conducting this research. And what we’re exploring is some of the most pressing challenges that business travelers today are facing. And that includes, of course, the impact of travel disruptions, tighter budgets and more. So it also gives us a chance to revisit a few of the key themes from our previous surveys so we can see has anything changed? Where do things stand today? And so a couple of the key themes that we picked up on were flexibility and also employees perceptions of their equal opportunity to take business trips.
The State of Business Travel
What is the overall state of business travel going into 2025 with factors such as the economy, our geopolitical tensions, things like that?
We looked at the business travel bookings that flow through our tool, Concur Travel, it’s our online travel booking tool. And we found that business travel bookings are actually up this year. Q1, interestingly, was the strongest quarter for business travel in 2024 to date.
And what’s interesting to us too is that this increase in business travel is at least partially driven by the interests of the employees. Our survey found that more than three and four global business travelers say they just enjoy it, and more than two thirds of them also feel that business travel is critical for their career advancement.
Contributing Factors
How does age, status as a parent or other factors come into play here?
So you mentioned a few attributes that are important. What we actually found appeared to most influence this perception, level of seniority, 19% of travelers attributed inequity to that reason. Age also a primary factor at 18%. And we saw other issues crop up, status as a parent, where you live, and sadly, physical appearance, gender, even accent, how you present yourself, all of those are perceived to potentially impact those opportunities. You might say, okay, how about gender? How does that play in? And what we found was that more women than men appear to perceive these attributes as being challenging. So more women than men, 20% of women versus 17% of men thought age was potentially a problem. Status as a parent, 17% of women called that out versus 13% of men. Curiously, but maybe not surprisingly, more men say that they’ve never actually felt that they were challenged in these opportunities for business travel. So 38% of men say not a problem to only 29% of women, right?
Learn More About Business Travel
For more insights, listen to this full podcast episode. And be sure to subscribe to the #WorkTrends Podcast on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
Anytime you want to continue this conversation on social media, follow our #WorkTrends hashtag on Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram. Let’s talk!
