Weather-related news has been prominent lately with hurricanes and a freak snowstorm, but a new study from GBTA tracks the cost of a single storm on biz travel: a loss of more than a half million trips and US$606 million in spending.
Research for the report is based on modeling the impact of a category-3 hurricane hitting the East Coast, says the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA).
“However, the calculations can be used to illustrate how costly a weather disruption could be on the industry,” the group adds.
The report also predicts that:
· Interrupted business trips would result in a total GDP loss of about $675 million
· Lost federal, state and local tax revenues of $176 million
· The eleven East Coast states in the path of the scenario storm would suffer an average business travel spending loss of $58 million per day
In addition, GBTA Foundation’s “ROI Refresh: Travel as a Competitive Advantage” report directly links business travel activity with top-line revenue:
· On average, each US business trip is correlated with about $56,000 in sales.
· Therefore, this hypothetical storm would cause an interruption of approximately $32 billion to top-line corporate revenue.
· While it is important to note that most of this would be recouped from rescheduled trips, some would be lost entirely.
“Hurricane Irene was a major wake-up call for the business travel community,” said Joe Bates, GBTA Foundation senior director of research. He added:
“The impacts of a more severe East Coast storm of any kind may be frightening to contemplate, but vital to consider.”
By David Wilkening
