Global business travel professionals are “cautiously optimistic” as the industry enters the year ahead — despite concerns over balancing travel budgets with costs, traveler safety and satisfaction, and potentially stricter U.S. border and visa requirements, according to the latest poll from GBTA.

Organizations expect their corporate travel budgets to hold or rise and anticipate modest increases in trip volumes and revenue, according to the research. Balancing cost control with traveler satisfaction will remain a central challenge, along with managing traveler safety related to travel-disruptive situations. Potentially, new cross‑border requirements pose a risk to international mobility and employee willingness to travel.

The poll included 571 corporate travel buyers, travel suppliers and TMC professionals across 40 countries surveyed on their outlook and concerns for business travel in the year ahead.

Suzanne Neufang, CEO, said the results “show an industry propelled by anticipated stronger demand and financial indicators, yet potentially constrained by external factors that could reshape business travel in the year ahead.” Traveling for work, she said, “is critical to how global companies and economies grow, innovate and connect.” She added, “We need to ensure it remains accessible, safe and seamless — and that every trip counts.”

Key highlights from the poll include:

• Six in 10 (59%) industry professionals polled — and consistent among buyers, suppliers, TMCs and regions — say they are optimistic about the industry this year. Globally, about a third (31%) of respondents, on average, cite a neutral outlook.
• While the majority are optimistic, trade, cross-border and economic headwinds have left their mark on travel buyers — their outlook for 2026 is down 12 percentage points versus coming into 2025 (based on GBTA’s November 2024 poll).
• A vast majority of buyers (84%) expect their organization’s business travel spending in 2026 to increase (44%) or stay at 2025 levels (40%). Among buyers who expect a rise, the average expected increase is 12%. Only 13% of buyers expect a decrease.
• One-third of travel buyers (35%) expect the number of business trips taken at their company to increase in 2026, while almost half (47%) expect levels to remain the same as in 2025.
• Among those buyers anticipating travel volumes to increase, the average expected increase is 14%.

• ​​​​​​​Three-quarters (75%) of travel buyers expect their overall 2026 budget for travel management operations to increase (30%) or stay consistent with 2025 (45%). Among those expecting an increase, 20% anticipate less than 10% growth. However, 18% expect their 2026 operational budget to decrease.
• When travel suppliers and TMCs were asked where their organization is reducing budgets or spending in 2026, primary areas cited were reducing marketing spend (26%), pausing new hires (22%) and decreasing staff /outsourcing to vendors (13%).
• Travel buyers are most concerned about the affordability of business travel (70%), followed by the ease of obtaining entry/exit permissions and visas (65%) and employee safety (56%).

• About half (52%) of buyers are concerned about TMC service quality but are slightly less concerned (42%) about overall internal support for the travel program.
• A notable number of suppliers (45%) are concerned about the willingness of travel and procurement managers to explore and change existing supplier/TMC partners in 2026.
• For 2026, travel buyers cite missing content in the booking tool (46%), figuring out AI (46%), and leakage (39%) as top operational challenges.

• For AI initiatives in 2026, industry professionals cite pricing optimization (65%) and predictive analytics (64%) as the areas of highest interest. In addition, buyers believe AI’s current impact is primarily improving buyer data analysis and internal storytelling (45%) and automating reporting and analytics (42%).
• Looking ahead five years, buyers, suppliers and TMCs expect AI to deliver moderate improvements to automation (56%), with fewer (27%) expecting significant transformation of their responsibilities.