Executive summary: 

This publication is a continuation of our research into the return-on-investment (ROI) of business travel.

In a previous paper we discussed how travel approvers approach this topic when dealing with trip requests from travelers.

This study focuses on ROI from the traveler’s point-of-view, and is based on a wide-scale traveler survey (10,000 respondents) conducted by Carlson Wagonlit Travel (CWT) between May and October 2014. 

First, we analyzed the breakdown of travelers by their primary purpose of travel. We found that the top three reasons to travel were:

• A Meeting with existing or potential clients (31%)
• A Team-related meetings (21%)
• A Training and development (13%)

Second, we measured the success of business trips by asking travelers how useful their last trip was.

The scale ranges from 1 to 5 with 5 being the most successful. 88% of the trips are judged useful, with ratings of 4 or 5.

Finally, we analyzed the unsuccessful trips in order to understand if common patterns exist among them. We found that certain factors are indeed related to the low success of a business trip.

Specifically, we measured the probability that a trip will fail as a function of the following variables:

• A Number of meetings taking place during the trip
• A Cumulative time spent in meetings
• A Length of the stay
• A Advance bookings
• A Trip type (domestic, continental or intercontinental)
• A Level of seniority

In summary, we present a measurement of business trip success from the perspective of the business traveler. 

The next step will be to tie this success with key performance indicators typically used in global companies. Linking travel with business goals will help companies manage their travel program more efficiently and better support their strategic priorities.

Introduction:

Understanding the value of business travel and its ROI is of primary interest to the travel industry. But estimating the ROI for a given business trip is a challenging task. For the investment part of ROI, the productivity loss generated by travel stress must be considered along with the actual expenses.

For the return part things are less clear when it comes to quantifying a trip’s value or understanding what makes a trip succeed or fail. 

This research addresses these challenges. The data used for this study was collected in a large-scale business traveler survey conducted by CWT between May and October 2014. 

The paper is structured as follows:

• A Section 3 highlights the main purpose of travel, the outcomes travelers expect from their business trips and meetings,
  and the reasons why positive results are occasionally not achieved.
• A Section 4 presents a first measure of the value of a business trip, and we introduce a classification of business trips
  based on this measure. We show that most business trips are successful and that low-outcome trips are typically the
  exception, not the rule.
• A Section 5 is dedicated to analyzing the drivers and patterns of failure for business trips. These insights will serve to
  better recognize, anticipate and ultimately prevent unsuccessful trips in order to improve the overall ROI of business
  travel.
• A Section 6 gives a summary and conclusions of this study.

Read full report here.