As 2026 gets underway, the global business travel industry is approaching the year with cautious confidence and grounded in steady demand. But it is increasingly being shaped by cost pressure, geopolitical disruption, and regulatory complexity. While most organizations expect business travel activity to hold steady or grow modestly, recent events on the global stage have reinforced that optimism is conditional, not assured.
According to the latest Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) poll of corporate travel buyers, suppliers, and travel management company (TMC) professionals, 59% of respondents express optimism about business travel prospects in 2026. Among travel buyers, 84% expect their organization’s travel spending to either remain flat or increase compared to 2025, with fewer than 15% anticipating declines.
Yet industry experts caution that these projections reflect resilience more than expansion.
“We’re not seeing companies pull back from business travel altogether,” says Nan Park, senior vice president at Newland Chase. “What we’re seeing is far more deliberate decision‑making about where people go, how long they stay, and whether the infrastructure exists to support that travel compliantly.”
Rising Costs Are No Longer a Background Concern
Affordability remains the dominant concern for travel managers. More than 70% of GBTA survey respondents cite rising travel costs as their top challenge for 2026, reflecting sustained pressure from higher expenses related to airfare, hotels, and ground transportation. Balancing cost control with traveler satisfaction remains a central operating challenge.
While earlier forecasts suggest price increases might stabilize compared to the sharp volatility of recent years, developments over the past several months have heightened cost sensitivity. Airline route disruptions, constrained capacity in certain regions, and fuel price volatility have made forecasting more difficult and budgeting less predictable.
Park notes that, for many organizations, the issue is no longer just cost escalation but cost uncertainty.
“Even when companies plan for higher travel budgets, they don’t always know where the costs are going to hit,” he explains. “Air, hotel, ground transportation—depending on location and risk level, all of those can change very quickly.”
As a result, many organizations are reassessing travel budgets mid‑cycle, building in contingencies and tightening approval processes, especially for international and extended travel.
Policy Enforcement and Cross‑Border Risk Come Into Sharper Focus
Another major theme running through the GBTA poll is concern about government policies that impact international travel. Many respondents say that evolving visa and entry regulations, particularly changes proposed to systems like the U.S. Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA), could deter employees from traveling internationally. Of those who say they are wary, nearly two-thirds believe the requirements would make business travelers less willing to travel to the United States.
Meanwhile, 60% say these potential changes made planning business travel to the U.S. “unpredictable and risky,” even if they are ultimately not adopted. Within that group, more than 40% say the requirements would make them somewhat or very likely to consider holding more meetings outside the United States. Nearly 30% say it made them somewhat or very likely to decrease or warn against travel to the United States, at least for the short term.
According to Park, some governments are increasingly relying on automated, digitized border systems to track entries, exits, and cumulative days in‑country. The European Union’s Entry/Exit System (EES) calculates a traveler’s time in the EU, and if they surpass 90 days within any rolling 180-day period, they are penalized through a government process that involves fines, entry bans, and future refusal of visa applications. Employers can also face indirect legal, compliance, and operational consequences. These systems leave little room for informal workarounds that once characterized extended business travel.
“Previously, you might not have had a universal way to enforce length‑of‑stay rules,” Park says. “Now, enforcement is 100% digitized. Governments know instantly when someone is in violation, but employers often don’t have that same visibility, as the information is not disclosed to the public.”
This has significant implications for companies relying on extended business travel or informal arrangements that fall between traditional travel and formal mobility assignments.
Confidence Persists, but Planning Is More Conservative
Despite these challenges, business travel confidence has not collapsed. Industry suppliers and TMCs also show an upbeat revenue outlook in the poll. Nearly half anticipate higher revenue in 2026, and most expect their income to remain flat, if not rising. North America, however, stands out as a region where suppliers were least likely to expect growth, according to GBTA. This stability in expected spending and revenue is significant, given that earlier forecasts had highlighted more mixed results.
For example, separate 2025 GBTA polling suggests that nearly one‑third of global travel managers anticipate significant declines in travel volume due to U.S. government actions and broader uncertainty. However, in terms of travel volume, about 35% of buyers expect more trips this year, while nearly half expect volumes to remain flat.
Regional variability remains pronounced. Europe, the Middle East, and Africa (EMEA) continue to show greater uncertainty, reflecting uneven recovery and heightened exposure to geopolitical risk. Park emphasizes that companies are increasingly selective, not reactive.
“What’s changed is not that companies are traveling less, but that they’re planning more carefully,” Park says. “They’re asking earlier: Is this feasible? Is it compliant? And do we have the right teams involved before decisions are made?” This is particularly true as the conflict between Iran and the United States led some companies to quickly evacuate employees from the area, leading to additional costs and compliance concerns.
The Blurring Line Between Travel and Mobility
One of the clearest shifts emerging in 2026 is the growing overlap between business travel and mobility, particularly during periods of disruption. Employees displaced by conflict, security concerns, or operational necessity may find themselves traveling frequently between locations or residing temporarily in countries where they were not originally assigned. These scenarios expose companies to immigration, tax, and compliance risks that traditional travel programs are not designed to manage alone.
For instance, the recent conflict between the United States and Iran has created what Park calls “shadow assignments,” in which companies pull assigned employees from one location and temporarily relocate them elsewhere in the region. This prompts a hurried analysis of the current situation and possible assignment solutions that have the lowest risk in terms of tax, immigration, and compliance requirements.
“These assessments need data points for quick and accurate decision making,” Park says. “This includes the previous location of the employee, where they are being reassigned, whether they are eligible to be there based on nationality, what travel visas they currently have and whether new visas are required, and if there are any other residency or citizenship considerations that need to be addressed.”
Because this data is not held in one place, many times employers are scrambling to obtain the best data points they can based on payroll disclosures, but not all data points are captured here.
Park notes that responsibility for those employees often becomes fragmented when they fall between traditional business travel and mobility frameworks. “Mobility doesn’t necessarily see them as an assignee since their situation is temporary, and business travel teams know there are compliance risks associated with extended business status, but, historically, that gray area hasn’t had a clear owner,” he says. Recent events have made those gaps harder to ignore, leading to closer collaboration between travel, mobility, tax, human resources, and risk teams.
The Role of AI in Travel Planning
Evolving technological priorities are playing a role in the way organizations think about travel. A significant share of industry professionals say AI tools, such as pricing optimization (65%) and predictive analytics (64%), are areas of the highest interest for 2026. Many travel buyers also believe AI is already improving internal data analysis and reporting automation, though fewer see it dramatically transforming their roles in the near term.
Notably, interest in AI‑driven tools like predictive analytics and dynamic pricing is higher outside the United States than within, suggesting varying technology adoption patterns across regions. This reflects a broader industry trend where AI and advanced analytics increasingly inform travel management strategies, enabling better forecasting and decision‑making around spend, risk management, and traveler experience, even as companies navigate how best to integrate these tools.
However, Park points out that AI adoption has also introduced new challenges. As employees rely more heavily on AI‑generated information and online guidance, travel and mobility teams are often tasked with verifying and correcting misinformation.
“A simple inquiry can turn into vetting, research, re‑education, and then a solution. And that puts additional strain on teams that are already lean,” he says. Rather than replacing expertise, AI is emerging as a tool that requires strong governance, cross‑functional alignment, and human oversight.
Resilience Amid Constraint: Business Travel’s New Reality
GBTA’s findings paint a nuanced picture of global business travel, one of measured optimism interwoven with persistent concern. While most professionals expect stable or rising spending and travel demand, they also face affordability pressures, regulatory uncertainty—particularly around cross‑border travel—and operational challenges. This landscape is neither retreating nor returning to pre‑pandemic norms. Instead, it is evolving into a more complex, risk‑aware, and data‑driven function.
For talent mobility and workforce leaders, this environment underscores the importance of early collaboration across departments, clearer escalation pathways, and stronger infrastructure to support employees during disruption.
“Many organizations think they have a plan until they’re forced to execute it under pressure,” Park says. “What we’re seeing globally is that travel, mobility, and immigration decisions are still being made in silos, and that fragmentation becomes a real risk during disruption. The advantage now lies with organizations that align these functions early, not reactively.”
As uncertainty continues to shape the global landscape, business travel’s future will be defined less by volume growth and more by an organization’s ability to adapt quickly, compliantly, and with the employee experience firmly in view.