Tech giant Amadeus has released its annual insights report titled ‘Amadeus Business Travel Insights: Business travel gets personal’, which charts the behaviour and aspirations of business travellers across the UK.

The report is based on a survey of over 400 UK and Ireland adults, who work for large companies and regularly travel for business, and was conducted in December 2013, by ICM Research on behalf of Amadeus UK.

Findings suggest last year saw an increase in business travel compared to 2012.

The report showed a small increase in business travel trips in 2013, with an average of 13.1 trips being taken per person compared to 12.7 in 2012.

The number of individuals taking one or more business trips has doubled between 2011 and 2013 (up from four per cent to eight per cent), indicating that a greater breadth of employees across companies are making business trips.

There is a clear link between seniority within the workplace and frequency of travel trips - over 80 per cent of directors and managing directors made ten or more trips in the last 12 months.

Personalisation and efficiency were also key to those surveyed.

Almost two thirds of travellers say ancillary services such as extra legroom, dietary requests and extra luggage are important to them.

Some ten per cent of women stated they could not do without extra luggage allowances, compared to just one per cent of men.

Efficiency is also the main focus for business travellers, with 21 per cent of travellers specifying that obtaining the closest hotel to the meeting is their top priority when travelling.

The second greatest priority is connectivity, with 18 per cent citing the ability to connect to Wi-Fi as their top travel need.

Moreover, one in ten travellers believe reduced travel has a negative effect on customer satisfaction or has resulted in lost business.

Commenting on the findings, Diane Bouzebiba, managing director of Amadeus, UK and Ireland, said: “We are delighted to see the growing optimism in economic outlook translating into an increase in travel as indicated by our survey, especially given the pivotal role it plays in both employee and customer satisfaction.

“The findings shine a spotlight on the variation in traveller requirements, enabled by the proliferation of online and mobile travel management tools, variation of travel choices on offer.

“A key focus for Amadeus is to support corporate travel departments to cater to the evolving needs of the traveller of tomorrow, by streamlining the entire lifecycle of a trip; from research and planning, booking and amendment, right through to post-trip expense reporting and analysis.”

Over half of business travellers have outstanding travel expenses, with nearly a fifth (18 per cent) being out of pocket by more than £100.

Men are twice as likely to be out of pocket by more than £100 compared to women.

Expenses ‘falling out of policy’ is the most common reason for not being reimbursed (56 per cent), followed by lost receipts (14 per cent) and not being bothered to claim back (12 per cent).