The Global Business Travel Association cited solid economic growth and business investment as the positives behind its projection that 2026 business travel spending will increase more than 7 per cent year over year, even after a 2025 that outstripped GBTA's previous projections.
Yet the underlying trends show 2025 and 2026 spend increases are based mostly on rising prices and not so much on rising business travel volumes, as organisations look to hold the line in an inflationary environment. The fact that businesses aren't cutting back on travel in the face of rising costs, however, is a sign of business travel's "resilience," according to the association.
GBTA in its annual Business Travel Index Outlook, released on Monday (3 August) at its annual convention in Chicago, projected 2026 global business travel spending to increase 7.2 per cent year over year to about $1.71 trillion, above the $1.69 trillion it forecast last year for 2026.
GBTA for the first time in the BTI, developed with Rockport Analytics, also projected business travel volume, which it pegged for 2026 at 1.3 per cent year over year to 1.84 billion trips.
That projection comes after the 8.4 per cent year-over-year increase in 2025 actual global business travel spending outpaced GBTA's projection last year of 6.6 per cent. It attributed higher spending levels to "stronger-than-expected economic growth and enabled by a weaker US dollar and an easing of trade disputes in the second half of the year."
Source: GBTA/Rockport Analytics
Several of those factors remain in place in 2026, GBTA noted, citing continued corporate investment and demand for face-to-face meetings, but the conflict in the Middle East has hampered some demand, and trade policy remains uncertain.
"The outlook remains positive, although the challenges to growth are expected to moderate spending to a more sustainable pace," according to GBTA.
Business travel spending this year is projected to increase most rapidly, at between 5 per cent to 6 per cent year over year, in "service-oriented" industries like technology, real estate, health and education, said Edward Galvin, vice president and head of North America for Visa Commercial Solutions, which sponsored the BTI, in a presentation at the convention.
GBTA projects global business travel spending to increase year over year through 2030, the outer reach of its forecast. 2030 is the first year in which spending is projected to crack $2 trillion. The association projects annual growth rates until then to range from 4 per cent to 6 per cent.
Among individual countries, GBTA projects 2026 US domestic and international outbound business travel spending to increase 6.7 per cent year over year to $423 billion, the world's largest market. The second-largest market, China, is projected to spend $403.7 billion on business travel in 2026, up 5.9 per cent and becoming the last of the 15 largest markets GBTA monitors to cross its 2019 threshold in nominal spending.
Of the 15 largest markets, 2026 business travel spending in Brazil is projected to have the sharpest year-over-year increase at 13.8 per cent (to $35.8 billion), with the Netherlands posting the smallest percentage increase at 4.4 per cent (to $25.2 billion).
"The big story this year is that companies haven't stepped away from travel, but they are increasingly more selective and productivity-focused," GBTA CEO Suzanne Neufang said in a statement. "While business travel spending continues to grow, the number of trips is rising more slowly, making it necessary for all of us to assess industry and organisational impact."