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 remain aware of the latest business travel trends. Your company’s travelers, bookers and planners can all benefit from these cost-saving technology and virtual assistant travel trends. Rapid advances in artificial intelligence alongside 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 seems well and truly over, with post-pandemic travel trends showing full recovery into a renewed growth phase. 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. And 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, 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, and this will continue in 2025. Major platforms like Booking.com and TripAdvisor now offer built-in virtual travel assistants to give you suggestions during the planning process.
Corporate travel planners are using AI travel tools like Mindtrip to pull together individual and group itineraries based on data inputs, with users able to make and share schedule changes with the full 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 should there be a cancellation.
And for business travelers in need of restorative sleep after a long-haul flight or back-to-back meetings, hotel trends even include a new AI-powered bed that monitors heart rate and breathing patterns.
The recent travel trends for sustainability extend to modes of transportation. With organizations working to reduce carbon emissions, rail and car transportation are increasingly preferred over short-haul flights. Trains are 12 times more efficient per passenger than air travel. Simply taking the Eurostar in France cuts your footprint by 97% when compared to a short-haul flight.
Car rental can often be a more sustainable travel option for businesses over flying, particularly with the trend for electric vehicles, and carbon footprints are reduced even further when work colleagues share a vehicle.
As global workplaces become more equitable and diverse, current travel trends dictate the need for inclusive travel policies that actively enable people of all backgrounds to feel safe and supported when travelling for work. As such, it’s worth revisiting your company’s travel policy in 2025 to keep in line with these recent travel trends and ensure that access and accommodation options are available for employees of varying backgrounds and abilities.
Does the policy account for cultural considerations, traveler safety, duty of care and accessibility requirements? 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 help temper traveler expectations. Business travelers can virtually tour the hotel with a ‘walk-through’ before deciding whether to stay there. Take a look at this example from The Londoner: a virtual tour that takes you through the entire hotel, room by room, so that business travelers can determine if it’s the right base for them when planning a stay.
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 ensure it’s suitable for your team. With immersive, augmented reality integrated into apps, travelers gain navigation guidance or information directly on their smartphones.
One of the biggest business travel technology trends this year is NDC, or New Distribution Capability. NDC is a data interface created by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) as new 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 seamlessly 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 events, risks are a part of business travel and companies must provide duty of care.
As a result, current travel trends include an increase in tracking and safety apps. Companies need to know where their employees are, and how to reach them in case of emergency. Booking.com for Business partners with Traxo for this purpose, integrated directly into the platform with a real-time map showing 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 event are blurred at events like London’s International Confex, featuring everything from digital escape rooms to multisensory content theatres, Romania’s Climate Change Summit, with its 360-degree video footage, or even the must-visit SXSW in Austin, USA, 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 accelerated flexible cancellation policies as 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, individually tailored travel experiences. For example, by analyzing past bookings, the tools may 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 blending 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 used for submitting business travel expense reports or booking approval forms.
This year, look for automated, streamlined tools to remain competitive. Travel management solutions like Booking.com for Business let administrators, planners, and business travelers log into a central dashboard for fully automated efficiency.
Travel industry trends all point to a major business travel comeback. Even with a hybrid workforce, teams are travelling together in person again, and it’s expected that global corporate travel spending will swiftly surpass pre-pandemic levels this year.
While business travel trends remain primarily optimistic in outlook, there are some challenges to be aware of. Severe weather events can be disruptive, and increasingly frequent. Additionally, geopolitical tensions are a trend that travel managers need to stay aware of to keep employees safe.
Automation is the number one travel industry trend. Biometric technologies improve the traveler experience in airports, while automated digital check-ins allow 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 into 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 remain compliant with company travel policies, ensuring bookings meet company sustainability requirements while staying within budget. We’re constantly updating our product 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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