Manchester in the UK has been revealed as one of eight “trending” business travel destinations around the world by payments company American Express.
Amex named Manchester as one of three international trending cities, alongside Hyderabad in India and Adelaide in Australia, based on the growth in airline transactions by commercial customers over a 12-month period between 2024 and 2025.
Five locations in the US were also named by Amex for their high levels of business travel growth over the same timescale: St Louis, Providence (Rhode Island), Tempe, Reno and Fort Lauderdale.
Amex said that Manchester had been boosted by a “booming regional economy and a growing reputation as a hub for AI”. The city’s former mayor Andy Burnham last month became the UK’s latest prime minister and has just set up “No. 10 North” as a regional office in Manchester to give the destination an even higher profile.
The payments company also revealed the results of its annual Trendex survey of 1,000 US-based business travellers and 500 US business travel decision-makers.
This research found that 93 per cent of US travellers would be attending major sporting or cultural events this year to build new relationships and stand out from competitors by investing in “memorable experiences”.
Other trends included a surge in AI usage by travellers, which nearly doubled from 18 per cent in 2025 to 32 per cent this year. The survey also revealed that travellers still used an average of three tools per trip to manage booking, payments and expense submissions.
Three-quarters of travel managers agreed that using multiple tools created operational inefficiencies, while 65 per cent admitted that gaps or inaccuracies in spending data impacted their ability to make “confident” budget or policy decisions.
Fernando Iraola, Amex’s executive vice president and general manager of global and US large enterprises, said: “In a landmark year of sports and cultural events, businesses are using travel to deepen relationships, create memorable client experiences and win new business.
“But behind the scenes, they want to eliminate time-consuming manual processes that make it more complicated and inefficient. Advances in AI, mobile technology, and connected platforms are helping businesses simplify travel and expense management, reducing the administrative burden for travellers and the teams that support them.”