But the airline and hotel industries long depended on business travel for a substantial portion of their revenues because those customers, who often made their plans at the last minute, could be counted on to pay more for seats and rooms. Now that the pandemic has upended the notion that travel is necessary to do business, the question is how much it will resume, even when Covid is brought under control. Even the experts who were most optimistic about the prospects for business travel a month or so ago have begun to temper their forecasts. Among business travelers, it found, nearly 25 percent expected the “coronavirus situation” to worsen in the next month, a jump from under 14 percent two weeks earlier. Conventiongoers’ personal health concerns also rose, while their confidence in their ability to travel safely fell.

Source: International New York Times August 09, 2021 06:56 UTC