Dive Brief:
- While corporate travel continues to rise, its outlook is now “marked by more nuance and caution,” according to the 2025 Deloitte Corporate Travel Study, released last week.
- Although three in four travel managers who responded to Deloitte’s survey report expanding budgets in 2025 — a similar ratio as in 2024 — the percentage of managers anticipating future budget cuts rose from 6% last year to 10% this year.
- Rising costs, in particular, are causing headwinds. To manage their spending, more companies are targeting hotel rates, with some 50% of travel managers surveyed by Deloitte saying they’re encouraging corporate travelers to choose less expensive lodging options.
Dive Insight:
Some 54% of travel managers surveyed by Deloitte said cost is among the top three factors restricting travel, up from 48% in 2024. To manage this, more companies are targeting lodging costs (50%) than airfares (37%) or per diems (23%), Deloitte found.
The percentage of companies that said lodging costs were the primary target of their cost-cutting measures also rose year on year, from 38% in 2024.
While most companies are continuing to increase their travel spending, pullbacks — especially among larger companies — are becoming more widespread, per the study. Large organizations, in particular, are seeing budget pressure, sustainability goals and “uncertainty about business needs” reshaping demand, the study noted.
Deloitte conducted its Corporate Travel Study via July surveys of U.S.-based travel managers, team leaders who allocate travel budgets and corporate travelers themselves.
The complexity found in this year’s survey results marks a shift from the past two years, when corporate travel was showing signs of post-pandemic normalization, Deloitte noted.
High prices impacted businesses’ travel plans last year, too, with Deloitte’s 2024 Corporate Travel Study noting that pricing’s impact on travel volume was 1.5 times more significant than budget cuts.
Meanwhile, global hotel rates will continue to see moderate growth in 2026, per an American Express Global Business Travel report published last month.
In July, the Global Business Travel Association projected that trade tensions and policy uncertainty will negatively impact business travel spending this year.
