Business travel may be lagging the leisure sector post-pandemic, but thanks to conferences, meetings and conventions, it may reach — or even surpass — prepandemic levels by the end of this year.

While the leisure sector bounced back almost immediately after pandemic travel restrictions lifted, business travel has been slower to rebound as companies realize some of those client meetings can be conducted easier and less expensively via video calls. But that’s starting to change, according to a new report by Deloitte.

Almost three-quarters of corporate travel managers say they anticipate their company’s spend on business travel to increase this year, and another 58% predict it will continue to grow next year. While some of that increase is just because the costs associated with travel also are increasing — which is why 50% are seeking cheaper flights and 38% push for their employees to book less expensive hotels — the overall frequency of business trips is also on the rise. Twenty percent of those surveyed said business travelers expect to take 6-10 trips this year, a 5% increase over last year.

The driving factor behind this increase is conferences and trade shows. Sixty-five percent of travel managers cited higher participation at events as the main reason why their teams were traveling more. In fact, more than 60% of business travelers plan to attend at least one show or meeting in 2024. “Industry gatherings, which offer the opportunity to meet with many clients and prospects in a short time, hold an increasingly prominent place on respondents’ agendas,” the report stated. “A quarter of travel managers say that conference attendance was the biggest driver of travel growth in 2023 and expect that to continue in 2024. Half rank conferences among the top two growth drivers. Six in 10 travelers say they expect to travel for a conference in 2024, significantly ahead of all other trip types, in terms of number of travelers.”

As Craig Smith, CEO of Plano, Texas-based Aimbridge Hospitality, said during a panel at ALIS Summer Update in Dallas, “The fastest tide that’s coming in, obviously, is group. It’s been great. Incentive group bookings are doing very well because the economy’s doing well… Big association groups are booking, and they’re booking further out. It was a little bit of waiting and seeing with them,” he said. “With business travel, the tides are coming in, but they are coming in slower.”

When it comes to frequency, however, just 13% said they travel for meetings/conferences at least once per month. The most common non-conference-related business travel that is increasing in frequency more than meeting attendance is for client project work, which 23% said was good for travel at least once per month, and sales/client relationship building, cited by another 21%. Business travel managers are looking to both those high-frequency trips and the high-incidence conference travel as the two top drivers for increased spend.

This jibes with the results of the 16th annual edition of the GBTA Business Travel Index Outlook, which found the most common answer given by 4,100 business travelers from 28 global markets when asked the purpose of their most recent business trip was seminars and training, followed by conventions and conferences.

The biggest hinderances to business travel, corporate travel managers told Deloitte, were budget constraints, cited by 57%, followed by high airfare (44%) and high hotel rates (40%). The American Hotel & Lodging Association’s 2024 forecast projects 2024 average daily rate increases of 3% versus 2023 and 22% versus 2019. Average U.S. domestic airfare in 2023 was up 8.5% versus 2019.