The UK lost £4.76 billion in GDP in the last week of September due to the decline of business travel trips following Covid-19, new Business Travel Association data reveals.
Domestic business travel bookings were at 53.24% of pre-pandemic levels, the highest since May 2021.
But international travel was still struggling at just 21.37% of pre-pandemic volumes.
Overall international business travel trips from the UK dropped by 78.62% compared to the same pre-pandemic week in 2019, and there were 296,032 fewer international and domestic business travel trips – a fall of 55.76%.
Information from travel data provider Travelogix for the BTA shows the decline in business travel trips across ten key international destinations cost UK GDP £4.01 billion, and an additional £756.64 million from domestic business travel.
The BTA hopes to see more recovery, with increased bookings and revenue in the coming weeks following the government’s overhaul of the traffic light system for international travel from yesterday (Monday).
The fourth week of September shows the strongest week-on-week recovery for both domestic and international figures combined since the BTA started recording recovery data in May.
The data shows travel restrictions to:
- Germany have cost UK GDP £837 million in the week,
- France have cost UK GDP £771 million,
- Ireland have cost UK GDP £726 million,
- USA have cost UK GDP £550 million,
- Spain have cost UK GDP £372 million.
The figures all come from the decline of business travel trips.