Business travel is an essential business function which produces a broad range of benefits to both companies and individuals. This rather obvious claim is supported by 82% of executives who believe travel is important for business results. To understand the parameters of these benefits better, we have focused this analysis on seven distinct types of business travel. For each of these business travel types, corporate executives and travelers were asked about the related benefits realized by their companies. The benefits can be organized into four categories: keeping customers, converting prospects, building relational networks, and investing in people.

The table below identifies the intersection of each of the seven types of business travel with their respective primary benefits. This provides a framework for the surveys and analysis which follow. The following sections portray benefits of business travel within each benefit category as understood by corporate executives and business travelers themselves. Once these parameters of corporate perceptions have been established, the analysis moves to a quantitative assessment of the effects of business travel on corporate performance.