Number of business & conference trips growing and heading for new destinations

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Managing Director Tapio Simos from VR Ltd, the leading Finnish freight and passenger carrier, joined on Sunday the growing number of Finnish business travellers today heading for more and more exotic countries from the Helsinki-Vantaa airport. However, Simos’s destination was Amsterdam - not so exotic after all.
      With new growth spots for the global economy emerging in Eastern Europe, Southern America, and Asia replacing the traditional countries, many Finnish business travellers have had to become familiar with new destinations.
     
However, according to preliminary information compiled by Statistics Finland, the favourite venues in 2007 were in Sweden (295,000 trips) and Estonia (210,000), while Germany came in third with 126,000 business trips.
      The preliminary information also indicated that a total of 1.35 million business trips were made last year, showing a growth of 100,000 trips from the previous year.
      Over the last five years the number of business trips has been ranging from 1.17 million to 1.35 million.
     
In addition to the number of business trips, even the sales of such trips have increased.
      According to the Association of Finnish Travel Agents (AFTA), the sales of business trips to companies and communities amounted to EUR 845 million in 2007, showing a growth of some 6 per cent from the previous year.
      Even the business travel section is facing various trends in travelling.
      Managing Director Virpi Paasonen and Sales Director Jari Oinonen from Kaleva Travel Ltd. estimated that the presence of significant security risks has been perceived more and more often lately.
      Kaleva Travel Ltd, the largest privately owned and independent full-service travel agency in the country, is the Finnish market leader in business trips.
     
At the same time, travelling has become more difficult, as security checks have been stepped up, creating longer and longer queues at airports.
      Another new trend, emerging from the issue of climate change, is the debate on environmental considerations in connection with travelling.
     
Moreover, the social responsibility of enterprises is a topic that is also associated with security issues, and today travel agencies are obliged to look after their clients in new and foreign cultures.
      In the near future, it is expected that mobile applications including GPS tracking and location services will be further focused on.
     
Cost-efficiency also applies to business travelling, which is why more and more often a business traveller has been moved from the executive class to economy class seats, particularly on shorter trips.
      This has largely reduced the glamour of business travels, as the travellers can no longer enjoy the first class benefits, including free wine and gourmet meals.
      Paasonen and Oinonen believe that the destinations are still today chosen on the basis of appropriate facts: for example a congress is picked out according to the theme and lectures, the trade fairs of one's own line of business are attended, or a trip is made to the manufacturing plant of the company.
     
As time is money, congress organisers have to compete for participants, paying special attention to the attractiveness of the location and the ancillary programme of each congress.


Links:
  The Association of Finnish Travel Agents (AFTA)
  Kaleva Travel
  Statistics Finland

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