The Corporate Road Warrior Is Back With a Bigger Mission

Business travel is back. Global business travel spending is expected to reach between $1.62 trillion and $1.69 trillion for the calendar year, per estimates cited by the Global Business Travel Association industry group, surpassing pre-pandemic highs and establishing a new industry record.

Europe and Asia-Pacific are leading the expansion, while major events such as the FIFA World Cup are driving additional demand across North America. Yet beneath those headline figures lies a more significant development. At a moment when supply chains are being reconfigured, geopolitical uncertainty is reshaping commercial relationships and companies are seeking growth beyond traditional markets, the business traveler has become an unlikely indicator of where trade, investment and payment flows are headed next.

Behind the industry’s resilience today is also a shift in airline economics. Heading into the second-quarter earnings season, U.S. carriers are benefiting from a rare combination of moderating fuel costs, disciplined capacity growth and healthy demand. Brent crude prices have fallen sharply in recent weeks while domestic airline capacity growth has flattened through the peak summer travel season. At the same time, fare indicators continue to strengthen, suggesting airlines have thus far been able to maintain pricing even as input costs decline.

See also: AI Travel Agents Pack a Threat for Travel Aggregators

Business Travel Focuses on Creating Value

The recovery of business travel is often framed as evidence that face-to-face interactions still matter in a digital world. That conclusion is correct, but incomplete.

What makes business travel particularly significant in 2026 is not the volume of trips being taken. It is the nature of those trips. Organizations are traveling with greater intention, focusing on activities that create measurable business value. Those journeys increasingly revolve around supplier relationships, customer acquisition, market expansion and strategic partnerships—the very activities that generate future trade and payment flows.

That’s supported by PYMNTS Intelligence research conducted with Mastercard, which found that 57% of U.S. small- to medium-sized businesses (SMB) source goods or production inputs from overseas suppliers, making cross-border payments an increasingly routine part of day-to-day operations.

As organizations diversify manufacturing footprints, establish new supplier relationships and pursue alternative growth markets, executives are traveling to inspect facilities, negotiate partnerships, conduct due diligence and strengthen local relationships. In many cases, travel is no longer simply the result of international expansion. It is becoming one of its catalysts.

The significance extends beyond airlines and hotels. Today’s travel corridors often become tomorrow’s payment corridors. Increased executive movement between markets frequently precedes growth in cross-border transactions, foreign exchange activity, treasury services and international supplier payments. At the same time, the persistence of business travel suggests that trust remains one of the most valuable and least digitized assets in global commerce.

See also: Nuvei’s Payoneer Deal Shows Businesses Want More From Cross-Border Payments

In-Person Meetings Matter for Building Business Relationships

One of the more surprising lessons of the post-pandemic recovery is what did not happen. For years, many analysts predicted that videoconferencing would permanently reduce the need for business travel. Instead, organizations largely eliminated routine trips while preserving those tied directly to revenue generation and relationship building.

In other words, technology has not eliminated the need for business travel. It has concentrated it around the moments where trust creation matters most. Internal meetings that can be conducted virtually often remain online. Customer acquisition, supplier negotiations, partnership discussions, market expansion efforts and strategic planning sessions continue to justify in-person engagement. The result is a shift from travel volume to travel value.

As firms chase value over volume, business travel is converging with financial technology, expense management and corporate payments. Every business trip generates a complex web of financial activity, including corporate card transactions, expense reporting, invoice processing, reimbursement workflows, tax recovery and supplier payments. As organizations seek greater visibility and control over spending, these processes are becoming integrated into unified platforms.

Expedia’s May acquisition of CarTrawler, an Ireland-based B2B platform for the travel industry, underscores the direction of travel and strategic consolidation the industry is taking.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is accelerating this convergence. From itinerary optimization to automated policy compliance and predictive risk management, AI is becoming embedded throughout the travel experience. The technology promises greater efficiency, but it also raises questions about data governance, privacy and the future role of human travel managers.

Virgin Voyages, for example, now runs more than 1,500 active AI agents across its shoreside and shipboard operations.