New Trends Emerge In Uber, Airbnb For Corporate Travel

Certify has released its latest quarterly travel and expense management report, and the data suggests an interesting trend in corporate travel. The company’s SpendSmart report for Q3 2015 finds where newcomers to the expense report, Uber and Airbnb, land this season.

According to the data, Uber accounts for nearly one-third of the corporate travel market, and it is experiencing growth among business users across the nation. The SpendSmart report found that Uber makes up 31 percent of business ground transportation — considerably higher than taxis, which made up 22 percent in the quarter.

Uber rival Lyft is also seeing some growth, making up 3 percent of this segment, the report said.

Uber and other ride-sharing services are changing business travel in other ways, too. According to Certify, for the first time, ride-sharing expensing accounted for a greater portion of corporate travel spend than car rentals did in a single market: Boston.

Still, however, across the country, car rentals remain the most expensed service in the category of ground transportation, making up 44 percent of national spend.

Regarding alternative corporate traveler accommodations, Airbnb has a long way to go before it surpasses the traditional hotel. However, Certify said that, on average, the corporate travelers that use Airbnb stay twice as long as they do at hotels (four nights, compared to two nights at a hotel). In line with this finding, Certify also revealed that corporate travelers expense more than twice the amount they do for Airbnb bookings than they do for hotels; traveler satisfaction is also higher among Airbnb users than it is for hotels.

[bctt tweet=”Corporate travelers that use Airbnb stay twice as long as they do at hotels.”]

In a statement, Certify CEO Robert Neveu called these shifting trends “incredible to watch.”

“In our SpendSmart data, Uber had just 8 percent of the business traveler market in the first quarter of 2014,” he stated. “Now, it accounts for more than 30 percent nationally, and it’s starting to take share from car rental in key U.S. cities.”

“It is clear that business travelers are willing to explore new avenues for traditional services, and that their travel decisions are driven by convenience and quality,” he added.

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