Our industry celebrates diversity – but demands consistent quality.

In June and July 2009, when
the economic crisis was in
full swing, a total of 1,018 interviews
were conducted
with German business travellers
to gather data for the representative
study “Business
travellers 2009 – structures,
attitudes, behaviour”. Like its
predecessor from 2008, the
research compiled in 2009
and presented at the end of
last year once again delivers a
wealth of information on German
business travellers and
the German business travel
market. The following outlines
a few findings from the 82page
market survey.
In 2009 German business
travellers undertook 105 million
business trips involving
distances of at least 50 kilometres.
That was 15 million
less than established in the
previous study covering the
year 2008 and was, after all,
only to be expected. But what
did come as a surprise is that,
despite the marked drop in the
number of trips, expenditure
on transport and accommoda-
“Business travellers 2009 – structures, attitudes, behaviour”
Fewer trips – same turnover
tion held steady on 2008 to
reach EUR 25 billion again. By
corollary, the average outlay
on transport and accommodation
per trip thus climbed from
EUR 208 to 236 – an increase
of more than 13%!
One reason for this may be
that “only” 60% of business
trips in 2009 (against 68% in
2008) lasted for just one day
and did not therefore require
an overnight stop. Accordingly
the share of trips lasting more
than one day and involving accommodation
jumped sharply
from 32% to 40%.
The market survey also identified
a clear shift in one of the
main drivers of business travel.
Whereas in 2008 45% of
the respondents cited training,
seminars and education
as the chief reasons for their
business travel, in 2009 this
figure dropped to 37%. “This
pronounced decline,” the
study concludes, “will presumably
have been down to
the crisis and its implications
for the business travel market.”
Another interesting finding
from the research referred to
the choice of hotel, with threequarters
of business travellers
rating location as important/
very important, whereas prices
are important/very important
for only slightly more than
half. And not even 10% of travellers
consider the hotel brand
important or very important.
Consequently, when choos-
1/2010 53
ing accommodation it’s mainly
a matter of location.
Although almost five in every
six travellers are satisfied with
hotel prices, the study says
that hoteliers are not succeeding
in sufficiently impressing
the quality of their service.
Asked which accommodation
provider had recently delivered
particularly convincing service,
two thirds of business
travellers couldn’t come up
GERMANY
For the second time the International University of Applied Sciences Bad Honnef •
Bonn has presented, in cooperation with the market research institute infas, a
representative study on German business travellers.
with a name. According to Bad
Honnef University of Applied
Sciences’ research, small and
micro businesses made a particularly
poor showing in comparison
to the brand names.
“Although 35% of business
travellers stopping overnight
used a one-hotel business or
small firm on their last typical
business trip, a meagre 5% of
travellers were convinced by
the service.” TF