business travelers

Travel for business? It may be getting complicated.

This is a slightly different version of a story about business travel that we prepared for NBC News

Business travel’s four-year crawl out the pandemic was on track to continue this year, but the U.S. trade war has scrambled that outlook.

“The big word is uncertainty,” said Suzanne Neufang, CEO of the Global Business Travel Association, which had forecast worldwide spending to surge to $1.64 trillion in 2025, up from an expected $1.48 trillion in 2024. Last year’s estimated total, if preliminary data bears out, would mark the first time the sector surpassed its pre-Covid levels.

But pessimism has risen sharply amid President Donald Trump’s deep cuts to the government workforce and a dizzying range of tariffs. Now, about 29% of U.S. corporate travel managers and an equal share abroad expect business travel to decline this year due to government actions, according to a recent GBTA survey. The expected pullbacks could dent business trips by as much as 22%, the group found.

Industry experts caution that souring expectations so far haven’t translated to a collapse in bookings, despite signs of cooler demand.

Not off the cliff just yet

Business travel “hasn’t fallen off a cliff,” said Jonathan Kletzel, a travel, transportation and logistics leader at the consulting firm PwC. “It is definitely constrained right now, but will people stop traveling? Probably not. If you’re a sales-heavy organization and you’re not out in the market meeting with your clients, your competitors are.”

Still, growing concerns around business travel coincide with corporate leaders’ warnings that U.S. trade policies have injected fresh uncertainty into an economy that just months ago looked on track to build on its strengths.

Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian told CNBC last month that the carrier has had to check its expectations for what was shaping up to be the “best financial year in our history.” Travel demand was growing about 10% at the start of the year but has since slowed, he said, partly due to companies rethinking business trips and cuts to the federal workforce. Other airlines have flagged similar concerns, in some cases adjusting their growth plans or scaling back capacity.

Hotel operators and booking platforms are feeling it, too. Expedia said that U.S. travel demand is cooling. Marriott, Hyatt and Hilton have each reduced their financial forecasts in recent weeks.

Government-related travel closer to the cliff

Global Travel Associates, a Washington, D.C.-area agency that mainly serves government contractors, said travel sales slid 20% in the first quarter. Several had funding tied to the U.S. Agency for International Development, which the Trump administration gutted this spring, and those accounts are down by 75%-90%, Managing Director Tom Ollinger estimated.

Some of GTA’s clients switched to buying only refundable plane tickets; others canceled scheduled meetings or halted any new travel plans indefinitely, he said. In some cases, those with staffers on long-term assignments overseas were told to drop everything and head back to home base. “The organization provided them one-way tickets to return,” Ollinger said.

“Government groups are not happening,” said Jan Freitag, national director for hospitality market analytics at the real estate data firm CoStar. But many business meetings are still taking place, and while individual business travel is a bit softer, “that could just be people not booking as much ahead,” he said.

However, Freitag cautioned, “should [more] tariffs hit and corporations have less sense of where their costs are going, they’ll start looking to cut costs. And the easiest place to control costs is travel and training.”

What’s next?

Navan, a corporate travel management service based in Palo Alto, California, said bookings were up in the first four months of the year from the same period in 2024, despite a slight slowdown in April.

“There’s certainly this feeling of waiting for another shoe to drop,” said Rich Liu, Navan’s CEO of travel. While CEOs are telling him they’re “feeling the squeeze” from new import taxes and other policy moves, “they still have businesses to run,” Liu said.

Individual business travelers seem to be getting anxious. The online travel insurance comparison site Squaremouth saw a 223% annual surge in searches for “cancel for work reasons” travel coverage last month, with purchases of those policies jumping 53%.

“That tells us that travelers are feeling uneasy,” said Squaremouth CEO Rupa Mehta. “In uncertain economic times, they want to understand the cost and value of flexible coverage before committing.”

The current outlook is “a mixed bag,” said Lorraine Sileo, founder of Phocuswright Research. At the moment, “it looks like leisure travel will be impacted more than business travel,” she said, adding that “it will take longer for corporations to feel the pinch of an economic downturn” than it will for vacationers.

“We need to take a wait-and-see approach” to see how business trips fare, Sileo said, “but there are indications that it will be a slow year for all types of travel for the U.S. market in 2025.

Happy with all that business travel? Most say they are.

There’s no shortage of surveys out there slicing and dicing the habits and experiences of business travelers.

I read them all in search of trends, ideas and occasional surprising statistics and found examples of each in the new National Car Rental State of Business Travel Survey.

Happy Travelers?

In general, most business travelers surveyed (92 percent) said they were satisfied with their quality of life when traveling for business. Eighty-nine percent said they were also comfortable with amount of business travel they do.

That’s a good thing, because 90 percent of business travelers reported that they planned to travel at least the same amount or more in 2018.

What gets done on the road? 

I could identify with some of the survey stats about how much productive work, sleep and quality “me” time takes place during business trips. Perhaps you will, too.

According to the survey, just a smidge over half of business travelers (51 percent) reported that they were calmer when traveling for business compared to their everyday lives, but they also reported exercising less, sleeping less and eating less healthy when away from home on a business trip.

Most business travelers surveyed (57 percent) also claimed to work more hours and to be able to focus better (48 percent) when on the road.

What about down time during business trips?

Your co-workers, and family members at home, might think your business trip is – or should be – all business. But everyone needs some down time, and here the results of the survey were somewhat surprising.

While most (80 percent) of business travelers said they take time for fun/personal activities while on a business trip, 38 percent said telling their bosses about that down time was a “no go”; 40 percent said they avoided telling co-workers about any fun they had on a business trip and 31 percent advised against telling spouses or significant others about any non-work fun during a business trip.

Mixing business and fun

I’m confident folks at home, co-workers and even bosses wouldn’t begrudge business travelers a bit of time exploring a new city and I’m surprised at the “no go” and “don’t tell” statistics in the survey.

It’s possible to squeeze in some fun on a business trip – and here are a few ways to make that happen:

Commit

Become a tourist while traveling on business by adding an extra day to the front or back of your trip to explore a new city. Make sure you use that time wisely by buying a ticket to a play, museum exhibition or city tour before your business trip starts.

Dip into a neighborhood

If you don’t have official extra time in a city, try to take at least one meeting at a coffee shop or restaurant recommended by a local. Walk or drive to that meeting by taking the long (but safe) route around.

Don’t return that rental car too early 

If, like some respondents to State of Business Travel Survey claim, you can focus well on a business trip and you get your work done early, don’t head straight for the airport.

Use the extra hours on your car rental and the “Drop & Go” perk you get from being a member of loyalty programs such as National Car Rental’s Emerald Club to visit an attraction nearby the airport. For some ideas, see my previous post, “Heading to the airport? Hold onto that rental car.”

Have some tips balancing work and fun on a business trip? Please share those in the comments section below.

FYI:The National Car Rental State of Business Travel Survey was conducted from December 4-11, 2017, among 1,000 U.S. frequent business travelers in Research Now’s Business Travelers’ database.

While I was compensated by National Car Rental for this post, all thoughts and opinions shared here are totally my own.