Travel costs, rampant travel cancellations and delays, and lingering health and safety concerns are causing business traveler and traveler manager stress, according to the fourth annual SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey. Based on responses from 3,850 global business travelers across 25 markets and 700 global travel managers across seven markets, the survey found:
Cancellations and delays are contributing to business traveler stress. 
• While 98% of global business travelers are willing to travel for work, they’re concerned about travel cancellations and delays (61%), more so than the “typically dreaded task” of filing the expense report for their trip (39%).
•Nearly 2 in 5 global business travelers (38%) say that during the trip is the most stressful stage of travel — a seven-point increase from the 31% of business travelers who said this in 2021.
• As a result, more than half (55%) report their job is already as stressful or more now than during the previous year.

 Health and safety concerns are empowering employees to decline business trips. 
• 91% of business travelers are willing to decline a business trip assigned to them, especially if they have COVID-19 related health concerns (51%) or if the trip required using non-sustainable travel options (24%).
• Four in 5 business travelers (82%) say their business travel has been impacted by the war in Ukraine. Safety concerns for traveling to certain parts of the world are the most common reason business travelers (53%) say they’d decline a business trip.

Travel managers face new challenges due to the turbulent travel landscape.
• More than half (55%) of travel managers report their job is already as stressful as or more stressful than during the previous year, and 100% expect their role to be more challenging.
• More than 1 in 3 (39%) predict challenges from reduced travel budgets in the coming year.

Charlie Sultan, president of Concur Travel, said year-over-year changes in business travelers’ stress levels are some of the most telling findings about the state of business travel. He said the respondents. “remind us that industry challenges aren’t theoretical.” The impacts of the pandemic, the “Great Resignation” and inflation are very real, said Sultan, and global business travelers are feeling and experiencing them directly.