Idioma
Business travel in 2025 looks very different from just a few years ago. The turbulence of the pandemic has given way to steady growth, but not without new challenges. Costs are climbing, sustainability is under sharper scrutiny, and traveler expectations are evolving fast. At the same time, technology is opening up fresh opportunities to plan smarter, manage spend, and create more seamless travel experiences.
This guide from Mozio brings together the latest statistics on costs, trip lengths, bleisure, technology, and safety to show where business travel is heading, and what it means for the people managing it.
Landing somewhere new can feel overwhelming. With Mozio, you can compare every option for airport transfers all in one place. No stress, no guesswork, just a smooth start to your trip.
Book nowBusiness travel has moved well beyond the turbulence of the pandemic years, but the landscape it returns to is far from static. Rising costs, shifting trade dynamics, and evolving traveler expectations are reshaping how companies budget and book trips, and at the same time, demand for in-person meetings and events is fuelling steady growth across global markets.
Here, we highlight the key numbers that define global business travel in 2025 to provide a snapshot of an industry navigating renewed demand, rising costs, and an increasingly complex economic backdrop.
Business travel has moved well beyond the turbulence of the pandemic years, but the landscape it returns to is far from static. Rising costs, shifting trade dynamics, and evolving traveler expectations are reshaping how companies budget and book trips, and at the same time, demand for in-person meetings and events is fuelling steady growth across global markets.
Here, we highlight the key numbers that define global business travel in 2025 to provide a snapshot of an industry navigating renewed demand, rising costs, and an increasingly complex economic backdrop.
Just fifteen markets will represent the lion’s share of corporate travel budgets, highlighting how concentrated the industry remains. For travel managers, this means negotiating in high-demand destinations will remain competitive, with limited opportunities for cost savings unless alternative hubs are considered.
The United States remains the world’s biggest spender on business travel, with some forecasts placing total spend at up to $395.4 billion. This is closely followed by China at $373.1 billion, reinforcing the combined dominance of these nations in the global corporate travel market.
Global hotel prices are stabilising after sharp increases in recent years. The average daily rate (ADR) is expected to increase from $161 in 2024 to $163 in 2025 – a modest 1.2% rise. While the pace of growth is slowing, accommodation remains one of the biggest cost pressures for business trips.
Businesses can adapt by negotiating preferred rates with hotel partners, steering travelers towards mid-tier properties with strong amenities, or expanding policies to include trusted alternatives such as serviced apartments.
After surging to $721 in 2024, average ticket prices are expected to drop by 2.2% to $705 in 2025, before inching upwards again in 2026. For procurement teams, this temporary relief provides an opportunity to renegotiate contracts and consider more flexible booking policies that can take advantage of dips without overexposing the business to future hikes.
Ground transportation is on a slower but consistent upward path. Daily rental rates are forecast to increase from $45.40 in 2024 to $46.70 in 2025 – a 2.9% rise. By 2026, rates are projected to hit $48.00 per day, underscoring the importance of centralised booking platforms, negotiated supplier agreements, and a reliable airport transfer platform to secure the best rates for corporate travelers.
For many employees, business travel isn’t just about meetings and deals; it’s part of what makes their role engaging. More than half (55%) of business travellers say work trips are a perk that makes their jobs more interesting and rewarding.
This highlights the positive role travel can play in talent attraction and retention for employers. Far from being a burden, well-managed travel programmes can boost morale and give employees a stronger sense of connection to their company and its clients.
Business travel is far from uniform. While global spend is on the rise, the pace of recovery and how budgets are allocated differ sharply by region. Mature markets such as the US and UK continue to dominate international business travel spending, but Europe remains the hub of sheer trip volume, and Asia-Pacific markets like Australia are carving out a growing share through international events.
Here, we break down the latest figures by region to highlight how business travel priorities vary globally, from average spend to share of inbound visits.
The US travel sector continues its steady growth, with business travel spend projected to hit $316 billion in 2025 (US Travel), up 4% year-on-year. In fact, some sources estimate this figure to be even higher, reaching close to $400 billion.
While this marks a slower growth rate than global averages (4% vs 6.6%), it still positions the US as the world’s most valuable business travel market. For corporate buyers, the size of this market also makes it one of the most competitive, with limited scope for cost savings without long-term supplier agreements reinforced with robust technologies such as ground transportation APIs that can streamline booking processes for both businesses and travelers.
Business travel accounts for a significant share of inbound UK tourism, with 5.1 million business-related visits making up 16% of total inbound trips. These travelers are high-value: they generate £5.0 billion in spending, or 19% of the UK’s total inbound spending.
The implication is clear – business travel plays a surprisingly large role in sustaining the UK’s visitor economy compared to leisure tourism, underscoring the importance of supporting corporate visits to the country.
On average, international business visitors to the UK spend £184 per day, compared with £160 for holidaymakers – a 15% uplift. This premium reflects not just accommodation choices but also higher spending on meals, transport, and short-notice bookings.
For UK-based partners and suppliers, this reinforces the importance of tailoring services to business travelers, who deliver stronger returns per trip than their leisure counterparts.
Across the European Union, business travel represents 110 million trips annually, making up 9.6% of all tourism activity. While the proportion is smaller than leisure, the scale of the EU market means corporate travel remains a cornerstone of its tourism economy, especially in large cities like Amsterdam, Paris, Frankfurt, and Munich.
The difference in spending power is striking. EU data shows business travelers spend an average of €192 per night, more than double the €91 spent by leisure travelers – a 111% premium.
Business trips generate €555 billion, or 12% of trip-related spending, highlighting the disproportionate financial impact business tourism has on Europe’s hospitality and transport sectors.
Australia’s growing reputation as a business events hub is reflected in spending figures. In 2025, international delegates and conference, exhibitions, and meetings attendees contributed AU$2.5 billion, accounting for 13% of all international visitor spending. This underscores the central role business travel plays in Australia’s inbound tourism strategy.
Among European markets, Italy stands out with a 21% year-on-year surge in inbound business trips. This rapid growth reflects the country’s rising role as a hub for international meetings, trade fairs, and corporate events.
For travel managers booking across Europe, this makes Italy an increasingly important destination to watch, both for capacity planning and for negotiating competitive group rates.
Corporate travel demand continues to cluster around key city pairs, and return flights between Amsterdam and London are the busiest route for business travelers in Europe.
The concentration of corporate travel on this corridor highlights the enduring importance of London as a financial centre and Amsterdam as a European business gateway, underscoring the need for flexible air and onward transfer options on high-demand routes.
Behind every business trip are individual travelers with different roles, priorities, and needs. Understanding the demographics of business travel, whether that’s gender representation or purpose of visit, helps companies design policies and partnerships that better reflect the people actually on the move.
Generational differences are clear when it comes to how employees experience corporate travel. In the US, 52% of Gen Z travelers say they find business trips “very” or “fairly” stressful, compared with just 34% of Gen X. The UK shows a similar pattern, with 47% of Gen Z citing stress compared with 43% of Gen X.
For travel managers, this highlights the importance of tailoring policies and support not just by role or frequency of travel, but also by age group. Younger employees may need clearer guidance, smoother booking tools, and additional well-being support to help reduce the strain of travel, while older cohorts are generally more accustomed to the process.
GBTA research shows that 53% of women in the industry report taking 1-2 business trips annually, compared with 43% of men. This suggests women are often engaged in occasional but essential corporate travel, typically for specific projects, events, or training, rather than frequent trips for regular business meetings.
At the other end of the spectrum, 24% of men report taking six or more business trips per year, compared with 16% of women. This disparity highlights how seniority and role type often influence travel frequency – a reminder for businesses to design travel programmes that support both occasional and frequent travelers with equal attention to wellbeing and efficiency.
In the UK, women account for a substantial share of inbound business travel linked to professional development and networking. They make up 35% of international delegates at conferences, 33% at exhibitions and trade shows, and 36% of attendees for training and development trips.
These figures show that women are well-represented in the business events sector, underlining the importance of inclusive facilities, policies, and event design in supporting diverse traveler needs.
Costs are the most immediate pressure point for travel managers and procurement teams in 2025. We’ve examined things like per diem allowances and event budgets to show how quickly spending adds up and where organisations are focusing their efforts to control it.
After climbing to $162 in 2024, daily meeting and event costs are projected to reach $168 in 2025 – a 3.7% increase. By 2026, that figure is expected to hit $172. While growth is slowing compared with last year’s 4.5% jump, it still places extra strain on corporate event budgets.
For organisers, this means sharper venue negotiations, stricter delegate policies, and early booking of things like attendee air travel and airport transfers are more important than ever to keep costs under control.
According to GBTA, the average spend per person on a business trip in 2024 was $834, with nearly two-thirds of travelers (64%) saying they spent more than in 2023. This underlines how rising hotel rates, airfares, and ancillary charges are being felt directly by travelers, not just procurement teams.
For businesses, providing clearer policy guidance (and ensuring bookings are made through approved channels) is essential to keep costs from spiralling.
HMRC guidance sets out strict benchmarks for allowable meal expenses: £5 for journeys of at least 5 hours, £10 for 10 hours, and £25 for trips of 15 hours or more that extend past 8pm. For businesses managing employees on the move, these caps highlight the importance of aligning internal policies with government rules – not only to stay compliant but to avoid disputes over reimbursements.
GBTA’s outlook survey shows that 48% of corporate travel buyers plan to increase their use of NDC-enabled bookings in 2025. This shift signals a growing push towards greater flexibility and richer content in air distribution.
For travel managers, the adoption of NDC offers opportunities to personalise offers and streamline bookings, but also raises challenges around integration with existing tools.
Corporate cards and virtual payment systems are under scrutiny, with 41% of buyers saying they will evaluate or change their payment solutions in 2025. This trend reflects a broader drive for efficiency and transparency in expense management, which are key for organisations trying to balance tighter budgets with growing travel demand.
Sustainability remains high on the agenda. 36% of buyers plan to implement new sustainable practices within their travel programmes, while 28% expect to adopt technology or services specifically geared towards hitting sustainability targets. This shift reinforces the expectation that cost management and environmental responsibility must go hand-in-hand in modern travel policy.
AI is emerging as a new lever for cost control and traveler support. 34% of respondents say they will apply artificial intelligence within their travel programmes in 2025, whether through smart booking tools, predictive analytics for spend forecasting, or automated traveler support.
For business travel managers, this marks a significant shift towards data-driven optimisation, and an increasing appetite for tech-led solutions amongst B2B buyers.
According to GBTA’s outlook survey, only 17% of corporate buyers plan to implement a new TMC this year. While this indicates broad stability in supplier relationships, it may also point to companies missing opportunities to drive down costs or improve service. For those facing persistent cost pressures, benchmarking existing contracts against the market could unlock savings without necessarily changing providers.
In regional terms, costs are climbing fastest in North America. Forecasts show the average daily rate (ADR) will hit $187 in 2025, up about 2.2% year on year. For companies with high volumes of US and Canadian travel, this highlights the value of preferred supplier agreements and the use of secondary markets to offset rising room costs in major cities, alongside cutting costs elsewhere, where possible.
Base fares only tell part of the story. Airlines worldwide saw ancillary revenues – this includes things like baggage, meals, seat upgrades, fast-track services, and ground transportation – climb 32.5% in 2023. For procurement teams, this means trip budgets can balloon quickly unless add-ons are monitored. Bundled fare negotiations and stricter internal booking policies are increasingly key to controlling “invisible” extras.
While overall forecasts show post-COVID recovery, not every organization is expanding. Among firms with more than US$7.5 million in travel spend, 20% expect their 2025 budgets to decline. For travel managers, this means budget discipline will be crucial. Even as demand rises, some teams may need to justify every trip more rigorously or re-prioritise high-ROI journeys.
The length of a business trip has major implications for cost, productivity, and traveler well-being. From short one-day visits to multi-day international stays, the data reveals how long employees are typically away from home and how this differs across markets.
The most common business trip length is a mid-range stay: 40% of all trips fall between 3 and 5 days. These trips balance efficiency with impact – long enough to justify the travel investment, but short enough to minimise time away from the office.
For travel managers, this trend highlights the need for flexible hotel partnerships that can accommodate extended but not long-term stays.
Quick turnaround travel is the second most common format, with 32% of trips lasting two days. These shorter journeys are typically for project kick-offs, client meetings, or site visits, where the priority is speed and responsiveness.
Procurement teams should ensure policies support efficient booking of short stays, including rail or regional air options and easy-access ground transportation where appropriate, to minimize travel time.
Single-day business trips are rare, making up just 5% of all journeys. This suggests that the cost and disruption of same-day travel often outweigh the benefits, especially when virtual alternatives exist. Where single-day travel is unavoidable, companies may need to factor in higher stress and lower productivity for employees making these fast turnarounds.
Trip length varies by market. In the United States, the average business trip lasts 4.1 days, while in the United Kingdom it extends to 5 days. The slightly longer UK stays reflect its higher proportion of international inbound travelers, where trips need to justify longer flight times and higher costs. In contrast, the US market skews towards domestic trips, where shorter journeys are more common.
For travel managers, these differences underline the importance of tailoring policies by region to account for varying trip durations and the associated needs business travelers might have as a result.
The line between business and leisure travel is blurring, with more employees extending work trips into personal getaways. For companies, this “bleisure” trend raises new questions around policy, cost sharing, and traveler well-being. The latest statistics highlight how quickly bleisure is growing and what it means for the corporate travel landscape.
Bleisure travel is projected to more than double in value, rising from $933.3 billion in 2022 to $2.3 trillion by 2030 – a 12.1% CAGR. This explosive growth reflects both employee demand for flexibility and companies’ willingness to support trips that balance work with downtime.
For travel managers, it raises the challenge of setting clear policies on how costs are divided and how extended stays are booked to avoid expenses issues.
According to IHG research, 42% of UK business travelers added leisure days to at least one of their work trips. This shows the trend is not confined to North America or Asia-Pacific – UK organisations are also navigating the policy implications of staff combining work with personal time abroad.
Bleisure is no longer niche. An Expedia survey found that 76% of global business travelers expect to take a combined work-and-leisure trip in the coming year.
For suppliers, this represents an opportunity to tailor offerings – from hotels with extended-stay amenities to ground transport options that accommodate both professional and personal itineraries.
In the US, 33.8% of all business trips already include a leisure component. The average bleisure extension is 4.4 days, nearly matching the length of a standard business trip itself. This suggests bleisure has moved from exception to mainstream, creating a growing need for travel managers to address duty of care, insurance coverage, and reimbursement rules when business and personal travel overlap.
Technology, including AI and biometrics, is transforming business travel planning, booking, and experience. For travel managers, the challenge is not just adopting these tools but integrating them into policies, systems, and duty-of-care frameworks that balance costs and traveler satisfaction.
Generative AI has quickly moved from curiosity to a core tool in travel. Four in five users (80%) say they use GenAI to research, plan, or manage itineraries.
For business travel managers, this highlights both an opportunity for faster discovery and booking, and a risk if staff bypass official channels in favor of AI-driven recommendations. Ensuring approved content is visible in AI tools will be key to maintaining compliance in the short and long terms.
AI is already embedded in corporate travel operations. According to AltexSoft, 71% of travel managers use AI to reduce costs, while 68% leverage it to enhance the traveler experience, and 63% use it for better data analysis. These use cases point to AI’s dual role: cutting operational waste while also improving service quality.
For businesses, the priority is to balance automation with human oversight to avoid gaps in policy enforcement.
While adoption is growing, many organisations remain cautious. Just 14% of buyers say they are already using AI in their travel programme, and 10% list it as a top priority for 2025. Another 34% say it is important but not urgent, while more than a quarter (26%) rank it low or no priority.
This mixed picture shows that while AI’s potential is widely recognised, its practical application in corporate travel is still uneven.
Biometric technology is rapidly gaining acceptance among travelers. An IATA survey found that 73% of passengers want to use biometric identification in place of passports and boarding passes, with 46% already having done so and 84% satisfied with the experience.
For corporate travel, this shift promises faster processing and reduced disruption, provided businesses ensure that biometric use complies with data privacy and security standards.
Duty of care remains central to every business travel programme. Across accident insurance, health coverage, and trip protection, travelers are demanding greater reassurance that their well-being will be safeguarded while on the road. The numbers show how safety expectations are evolving, and how companies are responding.
Spending on accident insurance is set to more than double over the next decade, with the market projected to reach $12.23 billion by 2033 at a 9.97% CAGR.
For businesses, this underscores the growing importance of robust insurance policies that cover medical care, accidents, and disruptions, not just for compliance, but for employee confidence and retention.
Chubb research reveals that 81% of employees now pay more attention to their company’s travel insurance policies. 79% are confident their company would support them if they fell ill, and 84% welcome the return of business travel.
This growth indicates a clear link between comprehensive insurance coverage and positive traveler sentiment, showing companies that policies are as much about peace of mind as financial protection.
The pandemic’s impact lingers in travel policy. At the height of COVID-19, business travel budgets dropped by 90%, forcing organisations to rethink how they manage risk and disruption.
Even as budgets rebound, that experience has left companies more cautious, and ensuring insurance, cancellation cover, and crisis response plans are now firmly embedded in corporate travel strategies.
Uncertainty remains a key concern. Demand for premium cover, such as “Cancel For Any Reason” (CFAR) protection, increased by 34%, reflecting businesses’ desire for flexibility in the face of geopolitical risks, extreme weather, and other disruptions.
For travel managers, this means budgeting not just for the trip itself, but also for the safeguards that keep employees (and the business) protected when plans change.
Nicole Kerr, CEO of Mozio, reflects on these statistics and what the trends revealed mean in practice for corporate travel managers and business partners in the wider industry.
“Statistics on their own are just numbers. The real value comes from how travel managers and partners apply them. The trends we’ve highlighted here point to a clear set of priorities: keep costs under control, protect travelers, and adapt quickly to changing expectations.
Take rising hotel and transport costs, for example. Higher ADRs and air fares mean advance agreements and centralised booking are more important than ever. When you know rates are climbing, locking in partnerships early with hotel chains and ground transportation platforms gives you an edge over competitors negotiating too late.”
The statistics make one thing clear: business travel in 2025 is neither simple nor static. Global spend is climbing, demand for in-person meetings is strong, and new technologies are opening up fresh ways to improve efficiency. At the same time, rising costs, sustainability pressures, and shifting traveler expectations mean programmes can’t stand still.
For travel managers and partners, the task is to strike the right balance – investing in innovation without losing sight of cost control, and expanding opportunities for travelers while maintaining duty of care. By combining smarter policies with the right platforms like integrated booking systems, ground transportation solutions, and airport transfer APIs, businesses can navigate the challenges and unlock the opportunities this evolving landscape presents.
This guide was researched and compiled by Mozio, a leading global platform for ground transportation and airport transfers. With nearly a decade of experience working with travel brands, corporate travel managers, and technology partners, Mozio brings deep expertise in the infrastructure that underpins modern business travel. Our insights are informed not only by our own market knowledge but also by the latest independent research from trusted industry bodies and travel analysts.
To create this report, we analysed a wide range of sources published in 2023-2025, including:
