The Global Business Travel Association (“GBTA”), the world’s premier business travel and corporate meetings organization, announces the results of its second GBTA BTI™ Outlook – Western Europe report, a semi-annual analysis of the five most critical business travel markets in Europe: Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain.
These five markets together form the lion’s share of business travel in Europe, nearly 70%, and provide a barometer for the health of the entire European business travel market. The report, sponsored by Visa Inc., includes the GBTA BTI™, an index of business travel spending that distills market performance over a period of time.
Highlights
- Germany, France and the UK are expected to see positive GDP growth in 2012, albeit under the 1.0% level
- Interdependencies in trade, banking, and distribution have cast a shadow over the region. As such, 2012 GDP growth expectation for the Euro Area (17 country definition) has been downgraded following the Spring 2012 report to -0.4%
- Italy and Spain are currently in recession and expected to remain so until 2014
- Overall business travel spend among major European markets will fall 2.2% in 2012 to $177 billion USD before bouncing back by 1.4% in 2013
- German business travel spend is expected to rise 1.6% to hit $50.8 billion USD in 2012, before growing 3.3% in 2013
- UK business travel spend is expected to remain flat in 2012 ($40.2 billion USD) before growing 2.8% in 2013
- France business travel spend will fall -2.2% to $35.7 billion USD in 2012, before growing 1.1% in 2013
- Spain business travel spend will decline -7.8% in 2012 to $17.9 billion USD before falling another 1.6% in 2013
- Italian business travel spend will fall -6.9% in 2012 to $32.9 billion USD and will shed another -1.2% in 2013
Country-Level Business Travel Outlooks
Germany
- GBTA forecasts German business travel spending to grow by 1.6% in 2012 to $50.8 billion and 3.3% in 2013 to $52.5 billion
- Domestic business travel spending will grow an estimated 2.8% in 2012
- International outbound spending in Germany will decline -3.0% in 2012
- Business travel spending in Germany has been supported by relatively strong industrial and service sectors and is spread across a number of large commercial hubs including Frankfurt, Munich and Berlin
United Kingdom
- The UK has the second highest level of spending on business travel in Western Europe with $40.2 billion in 2011
- The UK maintains a large volume of trade on the European continent resulting in a high proportion of spending on international outbound business travel (35% in 2011)
- The GBTA forecasts total spending on business travel in the UK to remain flat in 2012. International outbound travel from the UK will fall -3.1% and domestic business travel spending will grow 1.6%
- Moving into 2013, GBTA predicts growth to pick up pace (2.8%), with domestic business travel gaining 2.3% and spending on international outbound business travel gaining 3.9%
France
- Business travel spend in France is expected to suffer a loss of -2.2% in 2012 with total spending on business travel falling to $35.7 billion
- Business travel in France will continue to recover along with the broader European economy in 2013 and will grow an estimated 1.1% to $36.1 billion
- Any recovery in French business travel spending will be driven by domestic travel, which is expected to be flat in 2012 followed by growth of 4.5% in 2013
- GBTA forecasts outbound international travel from France to fall -5.7% in 2012 and another -4.6% in 2013
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