Consumers Warm to Business Travel but Pandemic-Era Caution Lingers
Hotel performance data indicates that business travel is returning with significant improvement in midweek hotel demand in the U.S., U.K. and Europe.
Weekday hotel occupancy has been rising steadily since February 2022 on both sides of the Atlantic. Recent weekday occupancy has been close to pre-pandemic levels as demonstrated in the two charts below. Amid this new landscape, however, consumer sentiment toward business travel remains mixed, and a large gap exists between current volume and pre-pandemic comparables.
Recent consumer research by STR, CoStar’s hospitality analytics firm, in May 2022 revealed telling insights into the sentiment around business travel. For this