ROCKY ROAD BACK

Biz travel slow

Nearly every corporate giant from Google to Goldman Sachs is bringing workers back to the office — but a return to business travel is shaping up to be a more sluggish affair.

Online domestic flight bookings totaled $5.1 billion in May, according to data released on Monday by Adobe Analytics. That’s off 4 percent from April and down 20 percent from the same month two years ago — and the big culprit is a stubborn lack of business travel, the data firm said.

Only 11 percent of workers are planning on traveling for business in the next six months, according to the firm — and 29 percent of those surveyed still don’t feel safe traveling.

“An increase in vaccinations and consumer confidence have unleashed some pent-up demand, but the lack of business travel is beginning to slow the comeback,” Adobe said. “The lack of business travel (as companies take a careful approach to re-opening) and lingering consumer hesitation are prolonging the road to recovery.”

According to the Global Business Travel Association, spending on work travel will increase 21 percent in 2021 — especially toward the end of the year as vaccinations become more widespread. But the group doesn’t expect a full recovery until 2025.

Financial firms have been the biggest proponents of getting back to the office — but even as they seek to bring employees back to headquarters, they have yet to fully resume travel-heavy initiatives such roadshows for initial public offerings. Likewise, most conferences and investor relations meetings, which previously accounted for a significant amount of travel, remain online.

Industries like consulting and law that required extensive travel aren’t even close to where they were before the coronavirus shuttered travel.

“Some firms that had in-person board meetings last quarter have reverted back to Zoom this quarter,” Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, Yale School of Management senior associate dean, told The Post. “There’s a cost-savings, and moving forward some companies may only choose to do half of their meetings in-person.”

Amazon and Google each saved more than $1 billion on travel costs last year as the pandemic halted business trips. Saving that kind of money will be hard to maintain. But others believe once some companies commence business trips, it’ll pressure others to get back on the road.

“They’ll save money on travel until they start losing business,” Thomas Hayes, founder, chairman and managing member of Great Hill Capital LLC, told The Post.