Downturn?

The UK may be officially in recession – according to the latest ONS figures – but London continues to attract the highest number of business travellers in the world, providing a welcome fillip to the capital’s economy.

The findings were culled from the latest global report on corporate travel and entertainment spend from Concur, the expense management provider’s detailed analysis of more than 500 million expense items from a combined £30 billion corporate spend.

‘It’s great to see London comes up trumps as a global business hub – the most visited city last year for business travellers. It’s also not the most expensive city to travel to, contrary to some beliefs, which could help draw more executives to do business in the UK,” said Isabel Montesdeoca, of Concur EMEA.

‘Additionally, the insights provided on regional spending trends across the most popular hubs for business travel helps UK companies benchmark their T&E spend policies more accurately, which is particularly important in this economic climate.’

The report revealed that in the UK, airfare was the top spend category – up by 9 per cent on the previous year, followed by lodgings and ground transport – both up by 10 per cent. Dining out rose by 6 per cent.

But the biggest rise for UK expense spend was on petrol – up by 23 per cent from 2010 to 2011.

More details on the report are available from the Concur website.