Tariffs, trade friction and rising costs led to a significant drop in business travel bookings to North America in the first six months of this year as UK businesses adopt a more cautious stance.
According to the latest Global Business Travel Review from Advantage Travel Partnership, in partnership with travel data and reporting specialists Travelogix, there was a 25.67% drop in bookings to the US through travel management companies in the period.
Closer examimination of the figures shows that while UK-based organisations are sending fewer people to the US, the spend associated with these bookings has only declined by 7.03%. With average booking values up by 25.08%, this suggests that these trips are being made by more senior personnel or those involved in high-value meetings travelling.
The comprehensive review, which consists of 555,138 records and £341.96m of spend, showed a significant downturn in long haul international travel, particularly to North America.
For example, New York held the second spot in 2024 in terms of booking volume but has dropped to fourth in 2025 while Los Angeles, which previously appeared in the top 10 destinations in the first half of 2024, fell to 22nd position in the same period this year.
In contrast, short-haul travel, particularly within the UK and Europe, has seen slight but noticeable growth with the number of UK-Europe routes in the top 10 rising from five to seven, suggesting a focus on regional business travel.
Across all destinations, there has been a 4.92% reduction in spend and a 12.35% drop in volume suggesting a market cooling across the board.
Advance purchase metrics further support this view with the average advance purchase time decreasing by 9.3% year-on-year, dropping from 40.42 days to 36.66.
For US routes specifically, advance purchase fell by nearly seven days, indicating shorter planning windows for travel and, perhaps, less certainty (or urgency) in transatlantic travel/planning.
