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From immersive events to data-driven bookings, recent trends improve corporate travel. Explore the top 9 business travel trends for 2025
For optimal efficiency, cost savings, and employee satisfaction, it’s essential to keep up with the latest business travel trends. Your company’s travelers, bookers, and planners can all benefit from cost-saving tech and virtual assistant travel trends. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence and a global push to net zero by 2050 are just two of the primary influences shaping 2025’s travel industry trends.
The 2020 travel slump is finally over, with post-pandemic travel trends showing full recovery and renewed growth. According to a recent Global Business Travel Association (GBTA survey), 86% of global business travel buyers and suppliers found that last year’s travel met or exceeded expectations. Looking ahead, 67% expect business travel to grow in 2025, indicating an optimistic forecast.
Along with this boost in industry confidence, business travelers can expect a more convenient and personalized experience both on and off the road. This includes the rise of “bleisure” trips, with 46% of buyers reporting employees interested in merging business with leisure.
Key travel trends for 2025 include a spotlight on technological advancements, inclusivity within business travel policies, and AI travel tools, outlined in our top ten below.
One of the top travel industry trends in recent years is the use of generative AI, which will continue in 2025. Major travel platforms like Booking.com and TripAdvisor now offer built-in virtual assistants to give you suggestions during the planning process.
Corporate travel planners are using AI travel tools like Mindtrip to integrate individual and group itineraries based on data inputs, enabling users to make and share schedule changes with the team in real time. You’ll also find apps like DeepL that can translate languages, along with virtual assistants and chatbots that can adjust flight schedules and make new bookings in case of a cancellation.
For business travelers in need of some sleep after a long flight or back-to-back meetings, hotel trends even include new AI-powered beds that monitor heart rate and breathing patterns.
The recent travel trends for sustainability extend to modes of transportation. With organizations working to reduce carbon emissions, trains and cars are getting more popular than short flights. Trains are 12 times more efficient per passenger than flights. Just taking the Eurostar in France cuts your footprint by 97% when compared to a short flight.
Car rental can often be a more sustainable travel option for businesses over flying—especially with electric vehicles—and carbon footprints are reduced even more when colleagues share a vehicle.
As global workplaces become more equitable and diverse, current trends call for inclusive travel policies that actively enable people of all backgrounds to feel safe and supported when traveling for work. That said, it’s worth revisiting your company’s travel policy in 2025 to align with these trends and ensure that access and accommodation options are available for employees of all backgrounds and abilities.
Does the policy account for cultural considerations, traveler safety, duty of care, and accessibility needs? If not, work together with HR to identify travel policy gaps and create a safer, more welcoming, and inclusive travel environment for all employees.
Photos alone don’t always tell the full story, which is why one of 2025’s hotel trends is using virtual reality to manage guests’ expectations. Business travelers can tour hotels with a virtual walk-through before deciding where to stay. Take a look at this example from The Londoner.A virtual tour that takes you through the entire hotel, room by room, so business travelers can determine if it’s the right place for them.
In 2025, this hotel trend will grow to include virtual experiences with a wider range of venues. For example, before booking a meeting space, you can virtually tour the area to make sure it’ll fit your whole team. With immersive, augmented reality integrated into apps, travelers can get navigation and other information directly on their smartphones.
One of the biggest business travel tech trends this year is NDC, or New Distribution Capability. NDC is a data interface created by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as a way for airlines to distribute flight content in a more personalized way. It impacts airline strategies by aligning fares to meet market demand using dynamic pricing.
For business travelers and corporate travel managers, this means access to the most up-to-date information in the event of delays or schedule changes. With personalized, data-driven offers based on preference, each corporate traveler will be able to adjust their bookings online or in-app.
In 2024’s International SOS Risk Outlook report, geopolitical tensions were rated as one of the top concerns for organizations. Whether it’s political instability or severe weather, risks are a part of business travel and companies must provide duty of care.
As a result, current travel trends show an increase in tracking and safety apps. Companies need to know where their employees are and how to reach them in case of an emergency. Booking.com for Business partners with Traxo for this purpose, integrated directly into the platform with a real-time map showing the locations and itineraries of each team member.
Post-pandemic travel trends include the reemergence of in-person meetings and conferences. In fact, 59% of corporate travel buyers reported that employees were attending more conferences compared to a year ago, as of Q4 2024.
This trend is expected to continue well into 2025, with in-person events increasing revenue and providing networking opportunities. With the rise in business conferences comes an emphasis on using technology to create a more immersive experience. The lines between festival and networking are blurred at events like London’s International Confex—featuring everything from digital escape rooms to multisensory content theaters—Romania’s Climate Change Summit with its 360-degree video footage, and SXSW in Austin, Texas, which blends cutting-edge technology workshops with film and music festival vibes.
We’ve already touched on how current travel trends like AI assistants and New Distribution Capability can create a more personalized experience. In 2025, customization will be the prevalent travel trend to meet the demand for flexible booking experiences. Post-pandemic travel trends have made flexible cancellation policies standard.
With big data, machine learning, and AI tools able to sift through vast quantities of data, travel companies can use past behaviors and current preferences to provide carefully crafted and individually tailored travel experiences. For example, by analyzing past bookings, the tools can learn that a business traveler prefers specific airlines, travel times, and in-flight services.
According to Global Business Travel Association’s regional SVP Catherine Logan, business travel trends include “more productive, personalized, and responsible travel” experiences that deliver real value. This includes bespoke itineraries that blend business with leisure in 2025.
With so many business travel apps and platforms, there’s no reason why the corporate travel booking process should be clunky in 2025. Manual processes are outdated, whether for travel expense reports or approval forms.
This year, look for automated, streamlined tools to stay competitive. Travel management solutions like Booking.com for Business let administrators, planners, and business travelers log in to a central dashboard for fully automated efficiency.
Industry trends point to a major business travel comeback. Even with a hybrid workforce, teams are traveling together again, and it’s expected that global corporate travel spending will swiftly surpass pre-pandemic levels this year.
While the outlook for business travel trends is promising, there are some challenges to be aware of. Severe weather events can be disruptive and have become increasingly frequent. Travel managers also need to stay aware of geopolitical tensions in order to keep employees safe.
Automation is the number one travel industry trend. Biometric technologies improve the traveler experience in airports, while digital check-in allows road-weary business guests to go straight to their hotel rooms.
Online platforms and AI-powered tools have transformed the booking experience, with travel planners, managers, and business travelers all able to log in to the same system for streamlined workflows. This year, automated tools like Traxo will continue to improve traveler safety with real-time tracking and assistance.
Platforms like Booking.com for Business also make it easy to stay compliant with travel policies, ensuring bookings meet company sustainability requirements while staying within budget. We’re constantly updating our products in line with the latest business travel technology trends for 2025 and beyond. With tech solutions, companies of all sizes can manage the logistics of corporate travel automatically for a seamless, user-friendly experience.
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