BUSINESS NEWS investment in technology to facilitate post-pandemic recovery. Lee Hayhurst reports
asks low outlay on IT staff 66%
longer-term trends which suggest that medium-sized firms are striving harder to maintain IT budgets. Data for the five years from 2017 to 2021 show firms with 10-99 employees were the only enterprise-size category to record annual growth in IT spending over the period. The strongest performance over
the five years was by firms employing between 50 and 99 staff, with overall annual growth of 4.2%, and this group is forecast to record the biggest spending growth in 2022 at 46%. The smallest firms, with under
10 staff, showed the steepest annual decline in IT spending over the five years at -10% overall, while the largest businesses with more than 1,000 employees recorded an overall annual decline in spending of -6.8% for the same period.
Predicted increase in travel industry spending on software in 2022
Travel agencies with 100-999
employees are forecast to record the sector’s biggest rise in IT spending in 2022, with overall budgets projected to increase by 89% year on year to £229 million. Medium-sized firms in travel are
forecast to be the second-highest spending sector on IT this year, beaten only by aviation businesses with 1,000-plus employees, which are forecast to spend £600 million. However, while larger firms spend
TRAVEL IT SPEND BY TECH CATEGORY, 2021
IT & Telecom SŨËƖ
£377.3m
Software £218.8m
* forecaste
Hardware £80.7m
the most, it is not always true that bigger businesses invest more on IT per employee. Travel agencies with 50-99 staff have gone from spending the least on IT per employee in 2016 to the second-most. The amount spent on IT per
employee by UK business as a whole has risen consistently in recent years and is expected to stand at £7,153 this year. That compares with a forecast of £7,369 per employee by travel agencies and £8,017 by tour operators, while the water transport sector comfortably outspends all other travel sectors and the UK average – spending £13,449 on IT per employee in 2021. However, the aviation sector
spent just £6,577 per employee in 2021 and the hotel sector spent only £1,106 per member of staff.
downloaded for free at:
travolution.com/news/ download-travolution- innovation-report-2022
COMMENT
I see a plethora of opportunities for innovation By Mo Shakarchi, product and innovation
officer at report headline sponsor Collinson
I’m a relative newcomer to travel but when I look at the sector as it puts the pandemic behind it, I see huge potential for growth.
Y, 2016-21 2016
We are an industry that is intrinsically linked to people’s wellbeing, facilitating new connections, lifelong memories and business across the globe. Not only should the industry be immensely proud of this, but it should also be at the centre of our thinking when we are innovating new products, services and experiences. When it comes to innovation, there is always the ‘what’ and the
2021 2016 2021
Telecom Services £268.4m
Computer Services £434.9m
‘how’. But it is ‘how’ you approach innovation that ultimately dictates the ‘what’. Many of the challenges facing the travel industry can be addressed with an increase in technological investment similar to what we’ve seen in other global industries. But it is the willingness of organisations across the industry to
collaborate and partner that will be key, as Collinson showed during the pandemic when launching our Covid-testing facilities. The experience of the last three years could be a trigger point, where
the shock of the crisis precedes a new era of rapid and fundamental change. When I look at the travel industry, I see a plethora of opportunities, from commercial-model innovation to technological innovation. Innovation isn’t about any one player; it needs an ecosystem to be
creative for the benefit of the traveller. There is enough of a pie for all, and it’s only going to grow.
Telecom Services IT and Telecom Staff
*The analysis was produced for Travolution by Kew Associates. The IT spending forecasts for 2022 were calculated according to: historical spending data in conjunction with growth in the number of employees, based on the strong relationship between total IT spend and employment; employment forecasts for each sector based on historical trends and how the sector’s data relates to the economy as a whole; the historical and projected spending for each sector was then disaggregated and checked against spend per employee and spend as a share of turnover.
The Travolution Innovation Report 2022 can be
travelweekly.co.uk
27 OCTOBER 2022
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