A survey of over 200 senior travel management company (TMC) managers has shown that while leaders are optimistic about the continuing growth of the business travel industry, many don’t feel equipped to meet rising traveller expectations.
Only 30-40% of TMC leaders report feeling ready to meet traveller expectations today, with the lowest confidence found in larger TMCs (those with 250 or more employees).
Commissioned by Expedia Group, the report titled The future of business travel: Is market optimism outpacing capability shows that 95% of TMCs expect business travel demand to increase over the next three years.
But alongside this growth in demand sit rising expectations from travellers.
TMC decisionmakers overwhelmingly project that their customers will expect greater simplicity (84%), personalisation (81%), loyalty rewards (83%), mobile booking (76%) and the ability to blend business and leisure in the same tool (85%).
All of the respondents surveyed were already using AI, and almost all (97%) reported ongoing investment in automation and real‑time data analytics. But despite this, fewer than half feel that this level of tech expenditure is sufficient to reach their goals.
“Business travel is entering a phase of immense opportunity – and equally immense pressure. Leaders know exactly what travellers want, but many lack confidence that their current systems can deliver,” says Carolina Cabero, SVP Expedia Group B2B. “Closing that gap is now the challenge.”
The research for this study was conducted by Censuswide from November to December 2025, surveying 214 senior decisionmakers at TMCs across the US, UK, Netherlands, Italy, Belgium, Spain, Australia, China, India and Japan. The report can be downloaded in full here.
