Advantage expects ‘strong’ year for business travel in 2025

Business travel members of the Advantage Travel Partnership have seen a “surge” in new customers during 2024, according to an update from the UK-based consortium.

Advantage, which is ranked as the third largest TMC network in Europe, said that 69 per cent of its corporate travel members have won more new business this year than during 2023.

One-third of Advantage’s Global Business Travel division members also said that they expect corporates to spend more on business travel in 2025 than they have done during 2024.

The consortium said these figures showed that “business is finally booming again for those in the global business travel supply chain”.

Advantage’s CEO Julia Lo Bue-Said said: “Given the increase in new customers our travel agency partners are seeing across leisure and business travel, we’re anticipating a really strong year for travel in 2025.”

Andrea Caulfield-Smith, managing director of global business travel at Advantage, added that while corporate travel was “back”, she noted that the average transactional value was declining.

She said this was being driven by changes in the booking patterns for airline cabins, as travellers look to take more sustainable travel choices when flying on business.

“They are turning right on the aircraft – we’re seeing growth in premium economy and economy class,” said Caulfield-Smith. “Younger travellers want to travel in economy and are also booking further in advance. They want to make informed choices and make sure they have a positive impact.

“There are also more advanced purchases – over 30 days in advance on average. Some of the corporates are buying four to five months in advance as they know when and where they are travelling to, and what the purpose of the trip is.”

Caulfield-Smith said some of Advantage’s corporate travel members were also seeing more clients starting to create increased flexibility within their travel policies.

She explained that this can involve individual travellers being given a specified budget for each trip based on the destination and distance travelled – with the ability to spend any money saved on future corporate trips when they could choose to upgrade their flights or accommodation.