For many Italian companies, business travel came back faster than expected in 2022. The volume of business trips, both domestic and international, increased overall by 70% compared to 2021. The domestic market leads the growth, and in 2022 was only 14 per cent below the peak of the 22 million business trips recorded in 2019.

According to the Osservatorio Business Travel, car trips are already 7% higher than in 2019. Other modes of transport have yet to achieve pre-pandemic levels but train trips are up 72% on 2021 and plane trips by 66%, although still around half of what was experienced in 2019. The country remains one of the top ten business travel markets in the world, according to the GBTA.

One of the big developments in the TMC space in 2022 was the acquisition of Robintur Travel Group by Gattinoni. Robintur includes the parent company Robintur and its subsidiaries: BTExpert, EgoCentro, Conero Viaggi, Robintur Travel Partner, Via con Noi, Cherry For Fun and Orchidea Viaggi. 

Gattinoni has been recognised for almost 40 years as a leading name in the sectors of business travel, MICE and leisure travel, with over 400 employees located between the Milan office and the five operating units in Italy and with a turnover in terms of managed value of commercial contracts in 2019 (pre-pandemic) exceeding €730 million.

Robintur has the largest Italian network of direct travel agencies and operates, through dedicated companies, in the leisure, business travel and group segments. It has almost 400 employees between the Bologna office, its own travel agencies and subsidiaries, and has developed a turnover in terms of managed value of commercial contracts in 2019 (pre-pandemic) exceeding €350 million.

Gattinoni will undergo a complete corporate restructure throughout 2023 and 2024. The business will be reorganised into three dedicated segments: travel, business travel and events.

As with many of the other major European markets, Italian companies focused on cost control, flexibility, digitalisation, traveller safety, and sustainability in 2022, according to the GBTA.

In the aviation sector, 2022 was the first full year of operation by Alitalia successor ITA Airways. The airline made a loss of €338 million on revenues of €1,576 million. The company said that the results were “consistent with the company's start-up status in a market that was still weak in the first months of the year due to the continuing Covid pandemic” but which were significantly impacted by the rise in fuel costs following the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict.

Negotiations with American investment fund Certares, Air France-KLM and Delta Air Lines on a sale of ITA ended in late 2022. Since then, Lufthansa Group has agreed a deal to take a 41% stake in the airline, adding to the German giant’s European airline portfolio.

The hotel sector made a significant jump towards recovery to pre-pandemic levels in 2022. According to PWC's Hotel Market Snapshot, hotel occupancy jumped sharply in 2022 compared with 2020 and 2021. However, Milan occupancies remain 27% down and Rome 16% down on 2019 levels. The consultants forecast that the hotel sector’s revenues will have recovered beyond 2019 levels by 2024.

Business travel is set to expand further in 2023 after the Italian statistics bureau Istat increased its projection for GDP growth for the year from 0.4% to 1.2%. However, purchasing manager sentiment in the manufacturing sector – which is the largest driver of business travel spend in the Italian economy – has reversed to contraction after a strong start to 2023.