There are large differences between individual cities in terms of the proportion of their inbound tourism which is based upon business travel and tourism specifically, for example “City Percentage of all inbound tourist trips which are business travel and tourism related”*:
Barcelona 35 (international visitors only)
Chicago 43 (international visitors only)
Copenhagen 39 (international visitors only)
Delhi 22 (international visitors only)
Geneva 70 (international visitors only)
Glasgow 18 (international visitors) 27 (domestic visitors)
Hong Kong 32 (international visitors only)
London 21 (international visitors only)
Melbourne1 14 (international visitors only)
Montreal 17 (international visitors only)
Paris 18 (international visitors only)
Rome 11 (international visitors) 31 (domestic visitors)
Singapore 16 (international visitors only)
Sydney 12 (international visitors only)
Toronto 21 (international visitors only)
* Source: Travel and Tourism Intelligence Country Reports (1999 and 2000).
Conclusion
1 The business travel market is a complex and fragmented market which is constantly changing.
2 Europe currently dominates the global business travel market.
3 There are significant national differences in the nature of the business travel market.
4 Predicting the future of demand in business travel is difficulty and risky.
Nevertheless, overall, it seems that business travel and tourism is a buoyant, growing market across the world.
The impacts of business travel and tourism
As with leisure tourism, business travel and tourism has economic, environmental and social impacts – both positive and negative.
The economic impact of business travel and tourism
More and more countries, regions, cities and resorts have been trying to attract all kinds of business tourism because it is seen to be the most economically beneficial form of tourism.
Surveys all over the world tend to show business tourists, and particularly conference delegates, spending between two and four times as much money as tourists as a whole.
There is no doubt that business tourism can bring substantial economic benefits to destinations and suppliers.
Positive
- Income for destination sand individual enterprises
- The creation of jobs
- The generation of tax revenue for local and central government
- The multiplier effect of business tourist expenditure within the local economy
- The potential stimulation of inward investment
- The injection of foreign currency where the business tourists are foeign
Negative
- The need for public funding or subsidies for the development and management of facilities such as convention and exhibition centres
- Opportunity costs where communities spend money on facilities and services to attract business tourists,
- Where the money could have been used for other purposes such as health and education
- Possible costs caused by congestion if there are too many business tourists
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However, we need to recognize that the picture is not always as positive as it may at first appear. For example:
1 Most of the expenditure goes to hotels and transport operations, many of whom may not be locally owned, within the destination.
2 Local taxpayers who are not employed in the business tourism sectors, may be net losers for they will receive no tangible income from business tourist but their taxes may, for example, be used to fund a new convention centre.
3 Business tourists often do not pay the full cost of their trip, for when they attend conferences or exhibitions at publicly owned venues, the venue may not even charge for the use of its facilities. On the other hand, tax income from business tourists can be used to support community projects.
Nevertheless, it is generally accepted that the economic benefits of business tourism are positive in most places.
Sadly, economic impact data is not collected frequently enough to allow the authors to provide an up-to-date picture.
The environmental impacts of business travel and tourism
Business travel and tourism, like leisure tourism, has a great impact on the physical environment. However, it appears that, in general, business travel and tourism is negative in terms of its environmental impacts.
Positive
- Hotels and convention centers can be created from previously derelict buildings
- The presence of business tourists and the desire to attract affluent delegates can persuade public authorities to improve the environmental quality and cleanliness of their town or city
Negative
- Business travellers demand Infrastructure, such as roads and airports, which destroys natural habitats, uses valuable resources and creates pollution
- Business travel often involves the use of the most environmentally unfriendly forms of transport such as the private car and aircraft
- As business travel lets are not usually paying their own bills, they tend to be more wasteful of everything from food to paper
- Much of the infrastructure such as convention centres and hotels, is built to standard architectural models and does not fit in with local building styles, scale, etc.
- Incentive travel groups can cause damage to the fragile environments which are sometimes the location for their programmes
On the other hand some suppliers such as airlines and hotels have been tackling these issues in recent years. For example, British Airways has pursued a proactive policy on all environmental aspects of its operations and we have seen hotel industry initiatives such as the International Hotels Environmental Initiative. As many clients of these organizations are business tourists these initiatives are clearly helping to reduce – a little – the negative environmental impacts of business travel and tourism.
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However, normally, such initiatives seem not to be about tackling the impacts of business tourists fundamentally but, rather, about budget savings for the companies.
Several trends are making the future look rather bleak in terms of reducing the negative environmental impacts of the transportation of business tourists. For example:
1 The lowering of air fares, in real terms, which is encouraging organizations to organize conferences and incentive travel packages thousands of kilometres from their clients’ home areas, thus causing more pollution, over a wider area.
2 Business people are still often given a car as part of their remuneration package, which encourages them to travel by car. This is made worse by the fact that a business person’s status is often judged by the size of their car and bigger cars usually do more harm.
Finally, business tourists could be seen as being even worse than leisure travellers in terms of negative environmental impacts, because they travel more frequently.