The average length of business trips in Germany has increased to 2.4 days across all types of organisations as travellers look to “bundle” their itineraries, according to the latest analysis from German corporate travel association VDR.

The annual Business Travel Report 2023 also found that German travellers are now taking fewer trips than pre-Covid, while the popularity of day trips has continued to plummet in Germany post-pandemic – a similar finding to last year’s report by the association. 

“To reduce travel costs – and especially transport costs – companies are increasingly opting for longer business stays,” said the report. “Day trips abroad, as well as within Germany, are no longer in keeping with the times in terms of climate-conscious travel.”

VDR found that the mix of destinations has changed with an increase in travel to neighbouring Switzerland and Austria. Meanwhile long-haul destinations, such as the US and China, have “lost their leading position in the business travel ranking”, although India has become more important.

The UK has also seen a decline in business travel from Germany following Brexit, particularly by larger corporations, and Russia has “disappeared” from VDR’s statistics since the start of the war in Ukraine in early 2022.

VDR has continued to see an “upward trend” in the number of business travellers in Germany, which reached 8.4 million in 2022 – still well below the peak of 13 million travellers in 2019. In total, there were 75.1 million business trips by German organisations last year.

Sustainability is growing in importance for companies and is increasingly “the first step” in assessing whether a business trip is necessary.

“Reduction in travel has become the preferred climate-friendly measure or planned measure for almost all companies (90 per cent),” said VDR. “The switch from air to rail travel, which was partly forced in the first pandemic year (2020), remains the second most popular sustainability measure at 83 per cent.”

More than half of respondents to the VDR survey said travel volumes would not return to pre-Covid levels due to the energy crisis, inflation and climate considerations.

“Even though companies did not agree to the same extent as in the previous two years with the question about a long-term reduction in business travel volume, the fundamental forecast remains that business trips will stay on a lower level than in the record years,” added the report.