German companies’ expectations of business travel volume have tempered toward a flattened outlook after a year that started with high growth expectations plunged when the Iran conflict erupted.
VDR's Christoph Carnier
The latest sentiment barometer of 89 buyer members of German travel managers’ association VDR, conducted in October, found 21 per cent expect trip volumes to decline in the 12 months ahead. That number fell from 32 per cent in May 2026, but remained dramatically higher than the figure of 4 per cent in January/February 2026, before the USA attacked Iran.
However, the proportion of travel managers expecting more travel has also continued to fall, from 62 per cent in January/February, to 40 per cent in May and 27 per cent in October. More than 40 per cent of buyers now anticipate no change to trip numbers.
“It is a slightly more positive outlook,” VDR president Christoph Carnier told BTN Europe during last week’s annual European conference in Vienna staged jointly by VDR and the Global Business Travel Association in partnership with the Austrian Business Travel Association. “The beginning of the year started well and then we had the Iran crisis, and problems in the automotive industry. But now we are seeing German industry is doing better than expected, and business travel is proving resilient in dealing with conflicts.”
Asked which factors are limiting travel, 57 per cent of barometer respondents cited budgets and internal savings, 48 per cent high costs and 38 per cent geopolitical uncertainty. Only 36 per cent expect travel budgets to increase over the next year, while 26 per cent anticipate a decrease, with 61 per cent saying cost has gained importance in decision-making about travel.
“If your industry is under pressure and you have to look at cutting costs, then travel is often one of the first things on the table, because you can make an immediate impact,” said Carnier.
“It is always a challenge if people only look at travel as a cost. It should be an investment: if you instead say ‘Hey, we need to reduce our travel investment,’ it becomes a different story. People talk about their investment in IT. Travel for me is similar.”