Millennial Biz Travelers Flock To Sharing Services

In what will probably come as a surprise to few, millennial business travelers are adopting sharing services more than their counterparts in other age groups, according to a new report.

Research from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) and Concur found that, in a survey of business travelers across Europe’s largest markets, nearly half of those aged 18 to 34 in the U.K. said they use ridesharing services like Uber often or all the time. Nearly the same amount (41 percent) said they use home-sharing services with the same frequency.

And while those figures were slightly lower when isolated to millennial business travelers in Germany and France, reports said the data still showed that more than a quarter of this age group use these sharing services most frequently.

Across these markets, older business travelers fell significantly short of their millennial peers when taking to ridesharing and home-sharing services.

According to the data, between 6 and 20 percent of travelers aged 35 to 54 said they use these services regularly. Just 7 percent of business travelers aged 55 and above said they use these services frequently.

“This suggests business travelers could be much more likely to use sharing services in the future, as older travelers exit the workforce,” reflected the GBTA in a statement announcing the findings.

Monica Sanchez, director of research at GBTA Foundation, said there are generational differences in the way business travelers adopt mobile travel booking services, too.

“As alternative channels are increasingly used, travel programs may have reduced visibility into booking over time, facing greater difficulty ensuring duty of care and achieving cost savings,” she stated. “It’s important for travel professionals to plan for this growing trend in their programs — ensuring they capture and manage employee travel no matter where or how it was purchased.”