Nine in 10 business travelers said an enhanced airport and cabin disinfection is a very or extremely important measure to ensure safe travel in the future, according to a BCD Travel survey. About 73 percent said an empty seat beside them was "very" or "extremely" important.

BCD surveyed 1,260 business travelers worldwide who work for BCD clients between May 4 to May 11. About 17 percent of those who traveled during the pandemic reported they ended their business trips earlier than planned and that the trips ended "smoothly." About 86 percent of those who traveled said they were "absolutely" or "somewhat" satisfied with their travel department's assistance during the pandemic.
On hotel measures that would ensure safe travel, 79 percent of respondents said enhanced cleaning was very or extremely important. The two most important regulatory measures were the use of contactless payment systems (67 percent) and infrared cameras to measure body temperature (58 percent).

Nearly three-quarters of business travelers who traveled amid the Covid-19 pandemic were able to complete their trip as planned. Seven in 10 respondents had business trips planned for the period of time when Covid-19 started affecting their region. Of those trips, 67 percent were canceled or postponed, 30 percent were shifted to a virtual meeting and only 3 percent took place.

At least nine in 10 business travelers listed email as their preferred channel for travel departments to use when communicating new policies or actions. Fifty-two percent of the respondent group said their corporate/intranet portal was a preferred channel.

For travelers, the top three worries were around future travel relate to post-travel quarantine measures (67 percent), social distancing while traveling (67 percent) and cleanliness of their environment during trips (66 percent).

About 66 percent of survey respondents were male. By age, 53 percent were between 40 and 55 years old, 29 percent were between 56 and 74 and 18 percent were between 24 and 39. By industry, 20 percent were from health and pharmaceutical companies, 14 percent were in manufacturing, 10 percent were in IT, 9 percent were in defense, 8 percent were in financial services and 39 percent were in other industries.