Thrifty days ahead for Business Travellers

An Orbitz for Business survey claims that although the amount of people going on business trips and the amount of trips themselves are increasing, the trend nowadays is to spend less. It appears that the global trend is growing and the style of business travel is changing a lot.
So what is the trend now?
It used to be the case that business travellers were the ‘darlings’ of travel service providers; throwing around money that was not theirs and always going for the most expensive options merely to maintain a desired image. According to the survey, gone are the days when cruising in economy class with a suit and tie were not a business traveller thing. Today, it appears that they will even throw in a wave for cash back incentive from their employer. Tougher schedules have led to business people returning earlier than before from trips and the economic climate has led to companies saving every cent they can, sometimes even offering their employees a financial incentive to do this.
The Orbitz survey of 850 travellers revealed a lot about the changes in the habits of business people. 70% claimed that saving money was at the forefront of their interests and most of these people claimed that they were financially motivated to do so. If the employee saves and the company saves, then the hotels and restaurants clearly lose out. Business travel has increased since 2008 yet with the new trends and behavioural patterns, it means very little to service providers.
Apart from cutting back on hotel stays and flight tickets, many business people have been using their own cars to get about. This is a huge saver and companies were clearly getting tired of paying hire fees and insurance. Another important factor is that business people tend to book their own trips nowadays; in fact 91% claimed that this was the case. This means that they are directly responsible for saving money, which is reflected in their behaviour.