Analysts look at airport on-time rates, lodging costs, cellular coverage, traffic and emergency room performance in business travel ranking.
DETROIT, MI — Wasted time is lost money in business, and the nation’s airports have a reputation for sucking up huge chunks of it with flight cancellations and delays and other disruptions. Travel is typically a company’s second- or third-largest controllable expense, making choosing the right airport a critical financial decision, according to an industry trade group that recently ranked the nation’s 10 best cities for productive, seamless business travel expenses.
Detroit came in No. 1 on the On Call International list, followed by Phoenix and Cleveland, which ranked second and third, respectively. On Call International, which specializes in travel risk management company, looked at a variety of factors — the on-time rates of flights in and out of airports in the nation’s largest markets, but also lodging costs, the reliability of mobile network coverage, traffic congestion levels and emergency-room performance.
“There are several issues that could arise during business travel that have the potential to affect employee safety and productivity — and also impact their organization’s bottom line,” Thomas Davidson, vice president of On Call International, said in a news release. “Clients, customers and partners may not be sympathetic when it comes to missed meetings or late deliverables in today’s always-on digital work environments, and staying connected while avoiding major obstacles like flight delays and gridlock traffic is paramount to a road warrior’s productivity and success.”
The top 10 cities on the Business Travel Productivity Report are:
- Detroit
- Phoenix
- Cleveland
- Minneapolis
- Denver
- Dallas
- Sacramento
- Tampa
- Orlando
- Houston
Detroit ranked third in one-time flights, fifth for affordable hotel prices and second for emergency room performance. The city tied for second with Minneapolis and Phoenix for low traffic congestion, and for fifth with Cleveland for 4G LTE cellular coverage.
