Dive Brief:
- A “significant portion” of the 900-plus global travel industry respondents surveyed by the Global Business Travel Association said they anticipate declines in business travel this year as a result of recent tariffs and other U.S. government actions.
- Nearly a third (29%) of global travel buyers expect business travel volume at their companies to decline in 2025, averaging a 21% decrease in travel volume, per the survey, which was released Wednesday. Less than half (44%) of global buyers say their company’s travel spend and volume will not be impacted.
- Business travel was on the rise in 2024, and though the segment’s outlook was “incredibly strong” coming into 2025, GBTA’s research shows “increasing concerns and uncertainty within our industry,” Suzanne Neufang, the association’s CEO, said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
GBTA’s survey asked travel managers globally about how travel will be impacted by U.S. government actions, including tariffs, new U.S. entry restrictions, other countries’ advisories against travel to the U.S., increased cross-border detainment risks and decreased business travel for U.S. federal employees.
Some 27% of travel buyers predict a decrease of 20% in business travel spending this year. Per GBTA, that decline would amount to $88 billion less in business travel spend, which the association previously forecast to reach $1.63 trillion in 2025.
Some 31% of industry professionals, however, said they are optimistic about the overall business travel outlook for 2025, while 40% said they are neutral. Those numbers, though, constitute a “significant” decline, GBTA said, pointing to a November report in which 67% and 26% of respondents said they were optimistic or neutral, respectively.
Meanwhile, a small portion of buyer organizations (7%) said they have already revised corporate travel policies for travel to or from the U.S. since January, and 25% said they are planning, or considering, to do so in the future.
As many as 20% of respondents said they have considered canceling, moving or pulling attendance from U.S.-based meetings and events, and 8% said their organizations have already done so.
Travel buyers’ top concerns about the long-term impacts of U.S. government actions are largely economic, GBTA found. The majority of respondents (54%) named business travel costs as their biggest concern.
“Productive and essential business travel is threatened in times of economic uncertainty or in an environment of additional barriers and restrictions,” said Neufang. “This undermines economic prosperity and damages the many sectors that rely on global business travel to survive and thrive.”
Business travel provided a “major boost” to the U.S. economy — as well as supported more than 600,000 accommodations jobs — in 2022, according to a GBTA report released in June. And more than half (55%) of business trips taken in the U.S. in 2022 included an overnight stay, the majority of which (76%) were in a hotel, motel or bed and breakfast, per the report.
Also in June, Morning Consult projected U.S. business travel would recover to above pre-pandemic levels in 2025. Group business, meanwhile, fully recovered in 20 U.S. markets in 2023.
