Hurricane Sandy, the 18th named storm of the 2012 Hurricane Season, is wreaking havoc everywhere she goes. The storm is also making an impact on travel as flights are cancelled, cruises are forced to change their itineraries, and people are left stranded in placed for longer than they expected to be. Sandy could severely impact business travel, which will cost millions of dollars.
According to the Global Business Travel Association, Hurricane Sandy could really hurt business travel. GBTA put numbers to the impact that other major weather events had on business travel and they came up with some figures of how much damage Hurricane Sandy may do to the industry.
According to a press release, "The research used GBTA's Business Travel Quarterly (BTQ) methodology to determine how a theoretical Category-3 hurricane on the East Coast would impact the business travel industry, and the results can be applied to any significant weather event that leads to widespread shutdowns and canceled travel plans, such as Hurricane Sandy."
According to GBTA, as many as 514,000 business trips could be cancelled due to Sandy, which means a loss of $606 million in spending due to the cancellations.
Interrupted business trips can have an even bigger impact than on the business travel industry. According to GBTA, there may be a GDP loss of up to $675 million and $176 million in lost federal, state and local tax revenues.
GBTA reports that the eleven states that lie along Sandy's path on the east coast can lose an average of $58 million per day in busines travel spending.
Hurricane Sandy already affected business travelers who were caught in the Caribbean. Many who were stranded in Jamaica had to ride the storm out in hotels in Kingston's financial district as airports were closed.
One woman, Cris Hopkinson of Toronto was on a business trip on the island and was hoping to catch a flight out by Friday once the storm moved along.
"For now, I'm just hoping that the glass in the windows doesn't shatter from the winds," Hopkinson told the Associated Press.
Some are predicting that Sandy, now a Category 1 hurricane, may be worse than the 1991 Perfect Storm, which resulted in $200 million in damage and 13 deaths. The damage from Hurricane Sandy is expected to read a billion dollars. At least 29 people were killed so far as Sandy passed through Jamaica, Cuba and the Bahamas.
The storm will make its way up the east coast and will then take a sharp turn towards land and will head right for the midatlantic states. Hurricane Sandy is expected to be met with a cold front, which may produce winter weather in some areas.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
