The second half of 2022 showed some level of recovery in business travel in France, fluctuating between the 80s and 90s in terms of percentages of 2019 levels, with consistent growth compared to 2021.

The Marco Polo Index even highlighted a peak of 102% in the last month of the year, attributed to underperformance in December 2019. Despite this improvement, the Global Business Travel Association now predicts a full recovery in the country by 2026, one year later than previously anticipated.

Regarding the hotel industry, the EPSA Business Hospitality Barometer reported high inflation in 2022 due to the expansion of what has been termed "revenge travel” – people flocking back to destinations that had previously been closed due to Covid. Rates in key cities increased significantly, with Strasbourg experiencing the highest increase at +47% compared to 2019, followed by Paris with a +37% price increase. Christophe Roth, director of missions at EPSA, affirmed that "business travel has once again become a priority for companies for about ten months, and the question of the budget is omnipresent".

French airport traffic increased by 91.8% compared to 2021 but remained down by 18.8% compared to 2019. Strikes in France impacted 30% of daily European flights for several weeks, causing delays primarily for Ryanair, Air France, and easyJet. According to Thomas Juin, president of the Union des Aéroports Français (UAF), “while traffic recovery began in 2022, it currently stands at the level of 2013. The forecast for a return to pre-crisis traffic has been pushed back to 2025.”

In the rail business, during the third quarter of 2022, the rise in train fares accelerated (+1.4% compared to +0.2% in Q2). SNCF benefited from a good summer, selling 23 million long-distance tickets – 10% more than in the summer of 2019.

France aims to maintain its status as a top travel tech market. Despite Expedia's decision to discontinue Traveldoo in 2022, the French travel ecosystem remains highly active. On the TMC side, Amex GBT is merging its development efforts with Neo and Egencia to create the largest business travel tech lab.

Several recent fundraising initiatives have been led by foreign investors. Spendesk, a company specialising in the management of business expenses, raised $100 million. Fluctuo, a shared mobility data aggregator, raised €1.6 million, and Expensya, an expense report management software, raised €20 million. Additionally, there is a growing focus on sustainability, with companies like Fairjungle raising €4 million to manage the ecological footprint of business travel, and The Treep raising €1.6 million to accelerate technical and commercial development and promote decarbonisation and sustainability in the business travel sector.

The impact of NDC is shadowing the TMC sector. Amex GBT has introduced the concept of MMP (Minimum Marketable Product) to support the industry in adopting NDC. However, there are mixed feelings among different business travel players. Cyril Guiraud, COO of the consultancy Theta, believes that "travel agencies lose productivity with the NDC standard and, therefore, the margin they charge." Yorick Charveriat, vice-president and managing director at Amex GBT, mentioned that implementing NDC requires 67% more work time for travel agencies compared to a traditional GDS booking – a significant increase.

Due to the pushback from TMCs, Air France has decided to postpone the NDC surcharge fee to TMCs until December 2023. To encourage travel agencies to transition to NDC, Air France-KLM plans to gradually remove its cheaper fares from traditional GDS platforms. Simultaneously, fares will be removed from the three major GDS platforms: Amadeus, Travelport, and Sabre. Their objective for 2027 is to have 90% of indirect sales through NDC, which currently represents about 25% of their sales.

• This introduction to the French market was written in partnership with Alexandre Veau, partner at Impact Consultants