The cost of travelling to meetings: How high is it?

For millions of workers across the country and further afield, travelling to and from meetings is a necessary evil. Although it can eat into people’s busy schedules and, in some cases, be a major source of boredom and frustration, it’s something that many people have to go through just to meet a client, colleague or potential new customer in person.

Aside from taking up what can be seen as precious time, the commute to and from meetings can also be pretty costly in a financial sense. A survey conducted by PowWowNow about the way in which people communicate at work, whether in the office or at home, found that the average spend on travel to and from a meeting is over £50 per week.

Pain on the train

The average spend for people travelling to meetings every week is, according to the survey, £53.20, although close to one in five respondents said they spent at least £101 a week. Even the average cost amounts to around £2,700 a year, which is a sizeable chunk of anyone’s salary, although nationally, 1.55% of people said they spent over £201 per week on meeting travel!

This particular stat shows that, in some circumstances, travel costs can spiral out of control, but the amount spent tends to vary. Unsurprisingly, the most expensive region for travelling to meetings was London, where the average spend per person stood at an astonishing £65.78 per week.

Big cities, big problems

To take the example of England’s capital, London, it’s no secret that prices are higher in general and that traffic congestion is a big problem. However, the capital isn’t alone in providing problems for commuters – who are hit hard in the pocket during their travels to regular meetings. The average cost per week in the West Midlands of meeting travel stands at £56.15. Birmingham, although not as big as London, also experiences a fair bit of congestion.

Further north and east, meeting travel tends to be cheaper than average. In East Anglia, for example, weekly costs average around £40.44, while the average cost of travelling to meetings for Scottish workers is £44.32. The amount spent seems to be determined by population, the number of big cities and connections to other parts of the country.