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Business travel and innovation go hand in hand, according to multiple studies.
When looking at ways to optimize your company’s budget, a common question is whether business trips can be replaced by remote conferencing tools. Do the rewards of travel really outweigh its costs?
For business travelers, the importance of face-to-face collaboration is clear. Our earlier internal research shows the overwhelmingly positive benefits of in-person work trips:
But does the impact of business travel extend beyond networking opportunities to drive innovation and investment? After all, these are the driving forces behind company growth.
To find out more about the link between business travel and innovation, we’ve combed through the latest research, including a global study from UNU-MERIT. This explores the return on investment (ROI) in short-term business visits, measured not only in sales figures but also in research and development (R&D) activities.
For businesses, this provides a clear justification for considering R&D metrics in your next travel budget.
In this article, we’ll take a deep dive into the ways that short-term business visits can influence R&D investment. By understanding the travel-related factors influencing innovation, your business will be better positioned to maximize its ROI.
Innovation in business begins with research and development, the building blocks of new ideas, services and products.
R&D supporting activities in a business can include everything from improving manufacturing processes to developing new software – but these activities require a strong foundation of knowledge sharing between workers.
When it comes to R&D, the type of knowledge that’s particularly important is tacit knowledge. This is the type that’s acquired through personal experience and observation, rather than formal education.
Tacit knowledge is difficult to share at a distance. Here’s why:
Think of knowledge gained on the job over time through direct, hands-on experience, on worksites or in labs.
Another thing to consider about tacit knowledge is that it’s not evenly distributed, geographically. This means for businesses interested in growing their knowledge base to drive R&D, employee travel becomes necessary.
Researchers at the Maastricht Economic and Social Research Institute on Innovation and Technology at the United Nations University (UNU-MERIT) took a closer look at quantifying the role of short-term business visits in fostering R&D worldwide.
To do this, they defined short-term visits as any lasting shorter than three months, merging datasets from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) and Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to track short-term business visits as well as R&D investments across 25 countries.
Global business travel spending varies widely by region, as do levels of existing knowledge.
Where there’s an unequal geographical distribution of experiential knowledge, labor mobility can close these gaps as travelers gain value from onsite visits to countries known for being R&D innovation hubs.
The results found that these business visits “positively and significantly affect R&D investments” with an elasticity of about 4-5%. By building trust and exchanging knowledge, business visits promoted learning while creating new networks essential for innovation.
The impact was most pronounced in countries or industries that are not already R&D leaders, including Mexico, Slovakia, Hungary, and Portugal, where travel-facilitated knowledge sharing had a greater impact on innovative performance.
When business travelers from non-leader countries bring back tacit knowledge from their visits, it amplifies the impact of R&D spending.
The study’s conclusion was that business visits should be viewed as a strategic investment, both for accessing and generating productive knowledge.
Our internal data shows that up to a third (32% in the US and 34% in the UK) of business trips involve visits to on-site projects, where tacit knowledge is shared.
But apart from its positive impact on R&D investments, business travel pays off in other ways. In fact, a 2025 GBTA report reveals a substantial return on global travel expenditure, both in terms of sales and net operating margin. According to the State of Business Travel: Current State and Future Outlook:
The same report looks at travel’s ability to generate both immediate revenue and long-term strategic value. Measuring ROI in net operating margin:
These gains are due to drivers like:
By optimizing their business travel, the GBTA report estimates that U.S. businesses can unlock $2.4 trillion in sales for all the reasons above. Within the UK, this potential stands at £319 billion, solidifying business travel’s role as a critical financial and strategic driver. From these figures, it’s clear that the cost of a business trip often pays off.
Booking.com for Business research shows that the use of AI in business travel is also further accelerating ROI. With AI travel tools optimizing spending through continuous, real-time adjustments, companies can reduce booking costs while refining travel policies for greater cost efficiency. Over half (52%) of travelers under the age of 35 are already using AI tools regularly to optimize their trips, according to our same report.
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Business trip value extends beyond finances to strategy. The UNU-MERIT study of short-term business visits highlights the importance of in-person interaction. Virtual alternatives often cannot replicate the power of face-to-face collaboration when it comes to knowledge transfer, particularly tacit knowledge.
According to the GBTA, the primary purposes of global business trips in 2025 include:
All of these are examples of the type of business trips that rely on direct engagement for collaborative breakthroughs.
Indeed, research shows that in-person collaboration is one of the main factors influencing innovation. Dr. Melanie Brucks, an assistant professor at Columbia Business School, and her colleague Jonathan Levav at Stanford University investigated the difference between remote working and in-person visits when it comes to sparking new ideas.
Their study found that two employees in the same room generated more good ideas for new products than the same pair would generate on a Zoom call. The Zoom groups produced 20% fewer ideas than those who met face-to-face. Brucks’ conclusion is that “people generate more ideas, and more creative ideas, when they meet in the same physical space.”
This is further supported by Harvard Business School research, which revealed that a 10% increase in nonstop flights between two locations led to a 1.4% increase in new patents filed. Its authors found that face-to-face collaboration is most consequential when overcoming different time zones or cultural differences.
A company’s culture and mindset are major factors affecting innovation. Employee satisfaction fosters an atmosphere more conducive to innovation, and business travel improves both metrics. A supportive, adaptable environment that values employee input drives workers to contribute their own R&D supporting activities and ideas while feeling safe enough to take risks.
In a report examining the link between employee satisfaction and firm innovation performance, researchers found that satisfaction with career opportunities, such as those generated through business travel, improved the quantity of innovation by 17%.
Employees themselves recognize the value of business trips. With 86% of business travelers believing that work trips are worthwhile in achieving their objectives, they feel a sense of purpose through travel.
According to Booking.com for Business internal data, 70% of workers felt that business travel had a positive impact on their productivity. This is enhanced with a dedicated well-being program, up to 20%.
Building on the impact of travel and well-being , GBTA figures show that over half (59%) choose to merge personal and business travel. Our roundup of 2025 business travel statistics also reveals a growing preference for the blended travel trend. It highlights the desire for flexible mobility, creating a better work-life balance and more meaningful employee experience.
The ROI of business travel can not only be measured by direct financial returns, but also through long-term strategic benefits including employee satisfaction and innovation. Using metrics like deals closed and R&D projects advanced, you’ll be able to quantify these returns.
The latest research also makes a strong case for business travel, both as a factor affecting innovation and as a critical catalyst for R&D uplift. It delivers significant, measurable ROI and boosts that indispensable face-to-face collaboration essential for cross-border knowledge exchange. Through travel, R&D teams can gather critical intelligence on market trends and new technologies, while sparking new ideas at in-person site visits, partner meetings and conferences.
By recognizing this profound impact on growth and effective collaboration, your business can put intentional travel at the heart of its innovation strategies. Booking.com for Business can help power this strategic approach by offering businesses and travelers flexible flights, car rentals and accommodation options that streamline the process of connecting talent with global opportunities for learning and collaboration.
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