Business travel isn’t the only category on the rise these days: everyone else seems to be spending more on travel too.
I ran into an article on eMarketer’s blog this morning that shows leisure and unmanaged business travel is on the mend, after what’s been a tough couple of years. After falling in 2009, the sector ticked upward in 2010.
Leisure and unmanaged business travel spending are expected hit $107.4 billion this year, according to eMarketer’s estimates. That would be a gain of 8.5 percent over last year’s $99 billion.
People are traveling more, it seems. But, there’s more to it than that. We’re also spending more for the privilege of being bumped with the beverage cart and scolded for not turning off our Kindles and iPhones.
And, we’re increasingly likely to do our homework online. This year, more than 114 million would-be travelers will research their options on the web, says eMarketer, and 93.9 million will pull the trigger and actually book online. The average online travel buyer is likely to spend $1,213 this year, up from $1,145 in 2010.