Booking.com reveals how £1.16tn in business travel moves knowledge worldwide
New analysis of GBTA data has mapped out the global business knowledge-sharing ecosystem, delivered by the £1.16tn ($1.57USD) corporate travel market.
Face-to-face collaboration, facilitated by business travel, can improve R&D investment by 4-5% through targeted knowledge sharing.
With this in mind, the corporate travel experts at Booking.com for Business explore the state of global business knowledge-sharing and its impact on regional R&D trends.
Short-term mobility: A direct catalyst for R&D investment
When it comes to R&D, the type of knowledge that’s particularly important is tacit knowledge. This is the type that’s acquired through personal experience and observation, rather than formal education.
Tacit knowledge is difficult to share at a distance. Here’s why:
- It can be difficult to explain
- It’s often complex
- It’s often context-specific
How business travel distributes tacit knowledge
Tacit knowledge is not evenly distributed geographically. This means that for businesses interested in growing their knowledge base to drive R&D, employee travel becomes necessary.
Researchers at the Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology at the United Nations University (UNU-MERIT) took a closer look at quantifying the role of short-term business visits in fostering R&D worldwide.
To do this, they defined short-term visits as any lasting shorter than three months, merging datasets from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) and Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to track short-term business visits as well as R&D investments across 25 countries. Global business travel spending varies widely by region, as do levels of existing knowledge.
Where there’s an unequal geographical distribution of experiential knowledge, labour mobility can close these gaps as travellers gain value from onsite visits to countries known for being R&D innovation hubs.
The results found that these business visits “positively and significantly affect R&D investments” with an elasticity of about 4-5%.2 By building trust and exchanging knowledge, business visits promoted learning while creating new networks essential for innovation.
The impact was most pronounced in countries or industries that are not already R&D leaders, including Mexico, Slovakia, Hungary, and Portugal, where travel-facilitated knowledge sharing had a greater impact on innovative performance.
The business travel experts at Booking.com for Business conclude: The ROI of business travel can not only be measured by direct financial returns, but also through long-term strategic benefits, including innovation. Using metrics like deals closed and R&D projects advanced, you’ll be able to quantify these returns.
The latest research also makes a strong case for business travel, both as a factor affecting innovation and as a critical catalyst for R&D uplift. It delivers significant, measurable ROI and boosts indispensable face-to-face collaboration essential for cross-border knowledge exchange. Through travel, R&D teams can gather critical intelligence on market trends and new technologies, while sparking new ideas at in-person site visits, partner meetings and conferences.
By recognizing this profound impact on growth and effective collaboration, your business can put intentional travel at the heart of its innovation strategies.