Today, the Business Travel Association (BTA) has revealed that the UK lost £3.89 billion in GDP in the fourth week of October, due to the lower level of business travel trips following Covid-19.
Whilst the £3.89 billion loss to UK GDP is not the lowest reduction the BTA and Travelogix have seen, the final week of October saw the first week-on-week increase in international departures since the Association started recording figures in May 2021 – when taking into account seasonality and travel volumes as a percentage of 2019 figures.
Data from Travelogix shows that, in the fourth week of October 2021, international business travel trips from the UK were 68.19% lower than the same week in 2019, and there were 352,144 fewer international and domestic business travel trips – a reduction of 66.46%.
The data shows that the lower levels of business travel to:
Republic of Ireland have cost UK GDP £758 million this week,
USA have cost UK GDP £547 million this week,
Singapore have cost UK GDP £289 million this week,
France have cost UK GDP £283 million this week, and
Germany have cost UK GDP £276 million this week.
The reduction of business travel trips has cost UK GDP £101.61 billion since the Association’s Business Travel Tracker began in May 2021.