Reasons cited were to retain employees, close business deals and to renew contracts with existing clients
 
KUALA LUMPUR, Aug 27 (Bernama) -- Despite travel restrictions throughout Malaysia due to the Covid-19 pandemic, business travellers are eager to resume work-related trips as they believe that the current travel hiatus is impeding their business objectives.
 
A latest study by SAP Concur reveals that Malaysian professionals hope to restart their in-person meetings soon, with 97% of respondents expressing willingness to travel for business trips over the next 12 months.
 
58% of the one hundred Malaysian respondents surveyed said they were ‘very willing’ to resume work trips, while 39% said they were ‘somewhat willing’; only 3% said that they were ‘not too willing’ to resume trips.
 
“The pandemic has upended business travel in the past year and a half. Yet, it has also reaffirmed business travel’s importance in forging business and personal connections, enabling career advancement,” said Dr Carl Jones, Vice President and Head of Strategy for SAP Concur Asia Pacific.
 
“While uncertainty continues to linger around travel curbs, companies can support business travellers by updating travel policies to provide more flexibility in flight and accommodation selection, better protecting employees’ health and safety.
 
“Then as vaccinations progress and travel bubbles form in the coming months, they will be better positioned to enable safe travel, facilitating business growth and talent retention.”
 
The top three concerns cited for respondents’ willingness to resume work trips were to retain employees (45%), fewer new deals signed (44%) and fewer contract renewals with existing clients (43%).
 
Without business travel, respondents fret that they would make less money (70%), not advance in their careers (43%) or even lose their jobs (34%).
 
Compared to previous years, however, some 58% of Malaysian respondents would rather use their personal vehicles or rent a car instead of using public transportation for domestic work-related trips.
 
A copy of the study can be downloaded here.
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The SAP Concur Survey – Business Travelers was conducted by Wakefield Research (http://www.wakefieldresearch.com ) between 15 April and 10 May 2021, among 3,850 Business Travelers in 25 Markets: US, Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. There were 1,050 respondents from the APAC markets, including 100 respondents from Malaysia. The data has been weighted to ensure reliable representation of the business traveller population in each market.
 
Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results. For the interviews conducted in this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 1.6 percentage points from the result that would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample. Margins are slightly larger for subgroups. The margin of error for the 1,050 respondents from APAC in this study is +/-3.0 at 95% confidence.
 
Source: SAP Concur
 
FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:
Name: Dominique Ng, SAP Concur
Email: dominique.ng@sap.com
 
Name: Michael Ang
PR Consultant
Email: mike.ang@alconsulting.asia
 
--BERNAMA