North America’s business travel market, a key growth zone for Australian companies Corporate Travel Management and Flight Centre, is facing a potential rollercoaster of omicron cutbacks.first entered there in 2012, and it is now the company’s largest revenue region worth $96 million in its latest pandemic-effected results.
Southwest chief executive Gary Kelly also said that for the next couple of years, the industry would “have to be more heavily dependent on consumer travel than where we were before”.Business revenues for the January-March quarter were likely to be down 45 to 55 per cent compared to the first quarter of 2019, Southwest said
The tough times have coincided with business travel agencies consolidating; American Express Global Business Travel made a large play in November, acquiring Expedia’s business unit Egencia.Then last month, Amex GBT revealed it was going to become a public company with a market capitalisation of $US5.3 billion , through a merger with a “blank cheque”, special purpose acquisition company.
But it also quoted surveys which said 31 per cent of US businesses expected to cut travel compared to pre-pandemic levels, one of the biggest drops among six nations. Amex GBT predicted the business travel market globally would return to 70 per cent of pre-COVID levels by 2023.outlined potential threats, including new COVID-19 variants disrupting travel.