Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), the premiere trade association of the global business travel industry, along with National Limousine Association (NLA), the leading authority for the chauffeured transportation sector, has officially published results from its latest research, revealing transportation industry’s currently focal points. According to certain reports, the report claims that safety, sustainability, and cost drive today’s transportation strategies. More on the same would reveal how GBTA’s research digs into the current state of ground transportation within corporate travel programs, as well as highlights key trends, challenges, and best practices for optimizing what is a essential component of business travel. As for the results, they begin from the fact that there is an opportunity for education and awareness when it comes to the chauffeured transportation industry’s capabilities. This is because, upon being asked to indicate which products/services come to mind with chauffeured transportation, the biggest proportion of responses still happened to include black car service (86%) and airport pickups/drop-offs (67%). Furthermore, the research discovered how respondents were less likely to indicate shuttle/van service (39%) and motorcoaches/buses (31%). Moving on to ground transportation, it was found to hold relatively small share of overall travel spend. A concrete lowdown will reveal that only 63% of the surveyed travel managers knew how much of their company’s overall travel spend was devoted to ground transportation. Out of those who did have an idea, they reported it to be no more than 11.5% on average.
Next up, the report discovered a trend where companies were deemed to have an incremental amount of focus on the “value” in business travel, with travel managers shifting from prioritizing cost reduction to maximizing the value and impact of each business trip. This, in turn, is expected to trigger increased chauffeured transportation use for key scenarios. Beyond that, the study’s results reveal significant opportunities for pre- and post-trip assessments to track the value of trips. Another detail worth a mention here is rooted in safety being the top priority for “managed” ground transportation programs. To reach upon this particular finding, travel managers were markedly shown six different priorities and asked to rank them in order of importance for their managed ground program. Going by the available details, almost three-quarters of respondents (73%) chose safety as the single greatest priority.
“Delivering effective, safe, convenient and sustainable ground transportation options and policies continues to be a priority for today’s business travel managers, as this latest report shows,” said Suzanne Neufang, CEO of GBTA. “As companies continue to navigate the complexities of business travel, understanding the nuances and value of ground transportation management is crucial for optimizing cost, safety and traveler satisfaction.”
Returning to the importance of value, GBTA’s report also learned that shuttle /van service is now viewed as cost-effective and sustainable, considering majority (63%) travel managers think of them as more cost -effective for group/project travel than employees taking separate transportation. Not just that, nearly 79% travel managers also believe they are more sustainable than individual transportation. Despite its well-known benefits, though, shuttle/van service remains largely underutilized. In essence, almost nine in 10 (89%) buyers said employees sometimes or always take separate transportation on group trips, whereas on the other hand, 67% said they sometimes or always arrange shuttles or vans to transport the employees as a group.
Hold on, we are not yet, as we still haven’t touched on how the research got to know that, when companies have carbon emissions targets, they do not typically extend to business travel or ground transportation. In the given context, more than half of travel managers (52%) reported their organization has a company-wide carbon emissions target. Having said so, only 16% of buyers said their company has a defined emissions target for business travel specifically, and even fewer (7%) indicated their company has a target for business travel ground transportation specifically.
