The United Kingdom’s business travel sector is now looking in much better shape after the shock of the pandemic but it is still to achieve pre-Covid levels, according to two pieces of research.

GBTA’s Business Travel Index Outlook suggested that despite the general bounce back from Covid, the UK is lagging other leading countries. Last August, the association predicted that the UK would hit 82 per cent of 2019 levels of business travel spending by the end of 2023, against 57 per cent in 2022. The Outlook predicted that 2023 spend in the UK would be $43.5 billion (£35 billion), making it the fifth largest market in the world behind China, the US, Germany and Japan.

The Advantage Travel Partnership’s fourth Global Business Travel Review was published halfway through the year in question but forecast that the market would be around 90.8 per cent of 2019’s figures.

While business travel spend is recovering, the number of trips is not. According to the Office for National Statistics, there were 6.3 million international business trips taken by UK residents in 2023, 30 per cent fewer than in 2019.

This indicates that the cost of business travel has increased and this is borne out by the Advantage research, which found that the average transaction value for the five months of 2023 was £432.35, 44.9 per cent higher than the same period in 2022. With inflation running at a four-decade high, this was far from unexpected.

A couple of TMCs have disappeared from the rankings this year, although they live on under new owners. In June last year, Wayte Travel bought Quintessentially Corporate Travel Management (QCTM). The combined business has meant that Wayte is now in the top 25 in the UK.

Agiito, the former Capita Travel, was acquired by Clarity Travel in August 2023 in a deal with an enterprise value of £36.5 million on a cash and debt-free basis. The deal effectively has enabled Clarity to jump to sixth in the UK table.

How will 2024 turn out for British businesses? The International Monetary Fund says the UK economy is “approaching a soft landing”, with a recovery in growth expected in 2024, strengthening in 2025. It now predicts real GDP growth of 0.7 per cent in 2024, the second worst performance in the G7. However, GDP growth will rise to 1.5 per cent in 2025 as disinflation buoys real incomes and financial conditions ease, with the UK set to be the third best country for growth in the group of major advanced nations.

There is also the small matter of the UK’s General Election which will take place at the beginning of July. Most pundits predict a change of government. The Labour party is claiming it will be “pro-worker and pro-business” if it gets into power after an absence of 14 years.