So many in our community spend their lives on the road that they are almost immune to the cost of flights and hotels and restaurants. But the hit to the pocketbook does impact where, when and how often we travel. It’s unavoidable. That’s why we were interested in the latest ECA’s Daily Rates report. The report provide average costs for hotel accommodation as well as meals, drinks, laundry, taxi transport and daily essentials for global travel destinations. This information is then used by companies to determine daily expense allowances for staff who undertake business travel. The results are quite interesting.
Hong Kong is the most expensive location for business travelers in Asia, overtaking Tokyo which drops to second in the rankings. Singapore and Seoul are each tied for third.
Lee Quane, Regional Director – Asia for ECA International explained, “Although Hong Kong has overtaken Tokyo in the rankings, this change is mostly due to the overall price of business travel in Japan decreasing in Dollar terms after the Yen fell in value over the course of 2017. The cost of business travel in Hong Kong has remained unchanged from last year with the typical business trip now costing USD 508 per day on average.”
But these prices compare favorably to the world’s most expensive destinations like New York where the average business trip would cost a total of USD 793 per day. This makes Asia seem like a bargain. Which is interesting as it makes up 40% of the global business travel market.
The study showed that European destinations in Switzerland and France continued to be among the world’s most expensive business travel locations. According to Quane,”Switzerland has long been considered a major financial and banking hub and will remain so for the foreseeable future, meaning that business travel to Swiss locations will keep on being a necessity.”
One last note, Chinese cities have seen an increase in cost for a standard business trip, with Shanghai now ranked as the 9th most expensive location for business travel in the region.
