Daily News Brief - February 16, 2021 - Global Business Travel Association

Dave Hilfman’s Monday Memo to GBTA Members – Tuesday Edition

Stepping in to lead GBTA has offered me loads of insight into what’s required for an Association like ours to be successful. Especially in such challenging times, we’ve tried hard to listen to our members, whether your feedback focuses on educational offerings, the need for the latest best-practices information or our advocacy efforts on behalf of a full recovery for business travel.

This weekly update is one example. You asked for better, more frequent updates about GBTA’s goings-on. That information is something I’m glad to provide at the beginning of each week.

GBTA Statement on the Passing of Arne Sorensen

All of us at GBTA heard this morning that the travel industry lost a giant with the passing of Arne Sorensen. From the day Arne shared the news that he was fighting pancreatic cancer, he, his family and the Marriott team worldwide have been in our hearts, thoughts and prayers. Arne’s loss is difficult to measure in a few sentences, because of his decency as a human being and his deeply consequential impact on the travel industry.

Arne was a leader’s leader – passionate, brilliant, direct, fearless, decent. He served Marriott International for 25 years in a manner that will leave a lasting legacy with the world’s largest hotel chain. He tirelessly supported GBTA and the business travel industry for many years. For those of us who knew Arne personally, his spirit will remain with us always. No matter the issue – within the workplace or beyond – Arne advocated for equality for one and all and for a future far better and more fair than the present.

There can be no more fitting praise than to say Arne left the world and all of us better than he found us.

Our thoughts today are with the entire Sorensen family, the Marriott family, and our friends and colleagues at Marriott. Arne will be missed so very much.

Business Travel Sees Steady Recovery in Europe

Emerging Europe to Recover First

GBTA held its European Town Hall today to discuss its annual BTI™ Outlook with a focus on Europe.

Europe comprised 27% of global business travel in 2019, attributing $392 billion to the $1.43 trillion global busines travel spending. Business travel in Western Europe accounted for approximately 23.4% of this global figure ($334.7 bn) and Eastern Europe (Emerging Europe) accounted for 4.0% ($57.2 bn).

The six largest markets in the region (Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands) accounted for 76.7% of expenditure in Western Europe.

Pre-pandemic business travel in Western Europe had already started to slow, increasing by only 1.3% between 2018 to 2019 (the average global business travel growth over the last 10 years was 5.1%, slowing to 1.5% 2018-2019).

Key findings of GBTA’s BTI™ Outlook include an analysis of 2020 challenges for the business travel industry as well as a recovery forecast.

Daily News Brief – February 16, 2021

Dave Hilfman’s Monday Memo to GBTA Members – Tuesday Edition

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