All published updates

Perk extends Amadeus distribution agreement to include NDC content

Perk (formerly TravelPerk) and Amadeus have extended their distribution agreement to include NDC content, bringing Perk's NDC connectivity to 25 airlines. New connections include Qatar Airways, Singapore Airlines, Air Canada, Scandinavian Airlines and LOT Polish Airlines. Perk will continue sourcing a wide range of other content from Amadeus, including air, hotel, mobility and transfer services, plus automation and servicing solutions. Perk says it has more than 10,000 customers globally, including Wise and Red Bull.

Amadeus Report: Mexico Emerges as a Key Travel Hub in 2025

The Travel Insights 2025: Focus on the Americas report by Amadeus and UN Tourism shows Mexico emerging as a leading destination and international air hub. Air traffic across the Americas rose 1.8% year on year, and Mexico's searches grew 22%, ranking it among the top five origin markets. North American hotel occupancy reached 74% by June 2025, with Mexico's ADR under USD 140. Mexico is attracting new long-haul routes from Asia and Latin America, while the U.S. still accounts for over 80% of new air routes in North America.

Amadeus and UN Tourism Report: North America Travel Demand Steady, China Origin Grows 7%

Amadeus and UN Tourism published the Travel Insights 2025: Focus on the Americas report, based on Amadeus Navigator360 data. From July 2024 to June 2025, air traffic to North America grew 1.1% year-on-year. The U.S., Canada, and Mexico remained the top three origin markets, while the UK rose to fourth. China (+7%) and Japan (+4%) were the fastest-growing international origin markets. North America hotel occupancy reached 74% in June 2025, slightly ahead of June 2024; ADR held steady above $160 in most months, with Canada peaking at $187 in June. New York and Los Angeles were the most booked destinations, Orlando rose to third, and Chicago rose to fifth. Nashville (+3%), Calgary (+2%), and D…

H1 2025 International Business Travel: Volume Up, Fares Steady

SAP Concur analyzed international air bookings in Concur Travel from Jan 1 to Jun 30, 2025, comparing with the same period in 2024. Global international business travel volume rose 2.6% year over year in H1 2025, up 4.5% in Q1 and 0.6% in Q2. U.S. business travelers paid the most for international flights at $2,675 per ticket on average; Japanese travelers about $1,950; Italian travelers $719. The U.S. remained the top global destination, accounting for 15.3% of international business trips.

Survey: How Business Travel Perspectives Differ by Generation

SAP Concur's seventh annual Global Business Travel Survey covered 3,750 business travelers across 24 markets, analyzing differences among Gen Z, millennials, Gen X and baby boomers. 97% are willing to travel for business, but Gen Z and millennials are more likely dissatisfied with current travel frequency. Younger generations more often report company travel cuts and are more open to AI and recommendations; older generations prefer manually sorting options. Air safety concern is similar across generations, 64% for Gen Z versus 52% for boomers.

Why Mid-Market Finance Leaders Are Rethinking Expense Policies

SAP Concur argues that amid hybrid work, rising compliance risks and tighter margins, expense policies are shifting from paperwork to a strategic asset. It lists three signs of an outdated policy: teams still emailing spreadsheets to claim mileage, frequent employee questions about whether a claim is allowed, and finance discovering out-of-policy spend after the money is gone. Outdated policies lead to inconsistent tax and audit compliance, employee confusion over reimbursables, manual processes that delay reporting and skew forecasting, and hidden overspend in decentralized or remote teams. The article recommends clear guidelines, automated workflows, real-time spend visibility and flexibl…

Amadeus Cytric collaborates with Globespan to issue first Air Canada NDC booking

Amadeus Cytric and travel management company Globespan announced an alliance under which Globespan becomes a reseller of Amadeus Cytric, offering the online travel management tool to customers across Canada and the US. Globespan became the first TMC to issue a live NDC booking from Air Canada on an online booking tool via Amadeus in the Canadian market, bringing Air Canada NDC content to corporate travelers. Globespan now has full access to Cytric Easy functionalities, including Microsoft Teams integration.

SAP Concur Annual Survey: 2025 Business Travel Budgets Rise but Policies Tighten

SAP Concur released its seventh annual Global Business Travel Survey, covering 3,750 business travelers across 24 markets, 700 travel managers across seven markets, and 600 CFOs across six markets. The findings show 89% of travelers, 93% of travel managers, and 90% of CFOs expect travel budgets to increase or stay the same this year, yet 69% of travel managers say budgets do not reflect business travel's importance and 81% of CFOs agree budget limits prevent employees from traveling as needed. Meanwhile, 87% of travelers report their company cut back on previously allowed items over the past 12 months, including overnight stays, business class, and non-client travel.

U.S. State Department Issues Level 1 Travel Advisory for Canada

The U.S. Department of State reissued Canada's Level 1 travel advisory, recommending normal precautions. Canada is generally a safe destination for travelers. The advisory advises U.S. citizens to always exercise caution abroad and provides general safety tips such as enrolling in STEP and reviewing the Country Security Report.

Impact and considerations

The Level 1 advisory indicates low travel risk in Canada, with limited impact on corporate travel policies, though routine safety measures are still recommended.

Survey: CFOs Prioritize Cost Optimization for 2025 Growth

SAP Concur released its third CFO Insights report, based on a survey of 350 CFOs and senior finance leaders across eight countries from December 2024 to January 2025. 69% of finance leaders cite optimizing costs and efficiency as the top goal for growth, with 58% turning to automation and AI. 94% say AI has helped improve decision-making, and 73% say AI has positively impacted cost and risk reduction. Top external challenges cited are worsening economic conditions (41%), geopolitical tensions (37%), and supply chain constraints (32%).

SAP Concur 2024 Recap: Travel and Expense Management Updates

SAP Concur recapped its major 2024 updates to travel and expense (T&E) management solutions. User experience updates include integration with SAP Cloud Identity Services, the SAP Fiori horizon theme, a redesigned home page, a refreshed Concur Invoice interface, and expansion of the new Concur Travel standard edition. Process and approval updates include a generative AI-enabled request assistant, quick request, hotel itemization in ExpenseIt, an invoice payment manager with virtual cards, and adding Trainline to the Concur TripLink hub. Security and data insights updates include PGP key replacement, SAP Analytics Cloud data templates, an IBM Cognos 11.2.4 interface upgrade, and new Concur Tr…

SAP Concur Survey: Safety and Sustainability Shape Business Travel

SAP Concur released its 2024 Global Business Travel Survey of 3,750 business travelers in 24 markets and 600 travel managers in six markets. 44% of travelers would consider declining a trip over destination safety concerns, 35% over political or social concerns and 33% over transport-mode safety. 39% of travel managers said geopolitical safety concerns will make their job harder over the next 12 months, and 37% said duty of care is hard without full trip visibility. Only 23% of travelers said their company requires use of its booking tool. On sustainability, 27% would decline a trip over environmental impact, up from 23% in 2023.

SAP Concur Webcast: How AI Is Redefining Business Productivity

SAP Concur released an on-demand webcast on AI and productivity, moderated by Brian Veloso with guests Deborah Maynard and Harsehaj Dhami. The discussion cites the CFO Insights Report: 98% of CFOs believe AI threatens them, while 61% see it as an essential tool for managing the unexpected. Guests said AI should be seen as a complementary tool to support staff and suggested measuring adoption via quantitative metrics such as task completion time. On regulation, they noted the private sector has more freedom and less regulation than the public sector, and that regulation can ensure public trust. A KPMG Canada report shows 72% of U.S. companies use AI in operations versus only 35% of Canadian…

Amtrak Goes Live with Concur TripLink Integration

Amtrak, the U.S. National Railroad Passenger Corporation, has officially joined the Concur TripLink ecosystem. The article says the integration lets business travelers book directly on Amtrak.com and the Amtrak mobile app, connect their Amtrak loyalty program, capture negotiated rates, and automatically sync the itinerary and e-receipt with SAP Concur solutions. Amtrak also features a direct connect integration with Concur Travel, letting travelers book a train reservation the same way they book air, hotel, or car reservations. The article says Concur TripLink serves a growing ecosystem of air, hotel, rail, and car suppliers, is used by over 14,000 customers, and supports more than 11 milli…

On Business Travel, Parents and Non-Parents See Things Differently

SAP Concur's 2023 Global Business Travel Survey found 99% of surveyed parents are willing to travel for business in the next 12 months, but 44% of parents say they travel more than they'd like, versus 25% of non-parents. Parents are more likely to identify a threat to business travel (95% vs 86%), and more concerned about health and safety (48% vs 37%) and international or local conflicts (37% vs 27%). 62% of parents changed accommodations in the past 12 months because they felt unsafe, versus 36% of non-parents.

SAP Concur Report Explores the Changing Role and Responsibilities of the CFO

SAP Concur surveyed 220 finance leaders across seven markets and released a CFO Insights report. Findings show four of five top external challenges relate to global economic turmoil; CFOs respond by increasing market monitoring (57%), investing in innovation (40%), and automation and AI (33%); 68% of CFOs see AI as a threat to their position, while 82% believe it will make operations leaner.

SAP Concur Verify: AI-Powered Expense Audit Advances

SAP Concur introduces Verify, its AI-powered self-serve audit solution. In the past year, Verify performed over 38 million audit checks on expense reports submitted through Concur Expense, with an average of one third flagged monthly for organizational review. Verify added 10 new checks covering duplicate receipts, old dates, personal use of company cards, and more, and is now generally available for enterprise customers in the U.S. and Canada.

SAP Concur Survey: Majority Feel Business Travel Isn't Offered Equally

SAP Concur's fifth annual Global Business Travel Survey polled 3,850 business travelers across 25 markets. Nearly two-thirds (62%) feel they haven't had equal opportunity to travel compared with coworkers, attributing this mainly to age, accent, or gender; in the U.S. the figure rises to 72%. 94% are willing to travel in the next 12 months and 92% say their career depends on successful business travel. Health and safety (44%) remains the biggest threat, and 53% globally changed accommodations in the past 12 months because they felt unsafe, rising to 70% in the U.S. Remote workers report sharper gaps in equal opportunity, travel willingness, and cost pressure.

IDP Education Streamlines Spend Management with SAP Concur and Ariba

IDP Education, a global international education services provider, deployed SAP Concur Expense and Travel solutions to address inconsistent purchase-to-pay processes across multiple platforms. It became the launch customer to integrate SAP Ariba purchasing with Concur Invoice for payment processing. The nine-month project was completed in three phases, with the final phase managed remotely due to COVID-19. Within a year, user feedback was positive: purchase orders created in Ariba map to Concur Invoice, Invoice Capture uses AI to eliminate manual entry, and mobile access plus audit trails improve accuracy and timeliness of payments.

What Is Top of Mind for SMB Travelers in 2022?

The SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey polled over 1,100 business travelers at SMBs (fewer than 1,000 employees). Key findings: 34% cite diminished travel budgets as a top-three threat; 50% include rising oil prices and inflation as a threat, higher than 44% at larger organizations; 98% are willing to travel in the next 12 months, but 60% say their current travel schedule falls short of expectations; 48% of unhappy travelers are willing to take action, and 26% will search for a new position; 89% are willing to decline a trip for safety, personal, or environmental reasons; 94% value sustainability info when booking, and 94% plan to act to reduce environmental impact in the next 12 mont…

SAP Concur Survey: Business Travel's Talent Implications

SAP Concur released its fourth annual global business travel survey, covering 3,850 business travelers across 25 markets and 700 travel managers across seven markets. Findings show 61% of travelers say current travel schedules fall short of expectations, and 82% report companies returning to pre-pandemic levels with a 'more travel on fewer shoulders' approach. 91% consider flexible travel options essential for health and safety. Nearly a quarter of travelers not at ideal frequency would seek a new job if schedules don't improve. All surveyed travel managers expect their role to be more challenging in the next 12 months.

Three Regulatory Pressures Impacting Business Travel in 2020

A SAP Concur blog post outlines three regulatory pressures affecting business travel in 2020: tax and permanent-establishment risks in international business travel, US interstate personal income tax withholding requirements, and the EU's revised Posted Workers Directive. It cites data showing 84 public cases of Canadian immigration non-compliance in 2018 with penalties of CAD 1,000 to CAD 10,000 and 49 organizations receiving two-year bans, plus 12 public US immigration non-compliance cases with fines of $275,000 to $34 million.

TripIt Adds COVID-19 Travel Guidance Feature

TripIt has added a COVID-19 travel guidance feature covering more than 200 countries and territories, providing destination infection rates, quarantine rules, testing requirements, mask mandates, curfews, and entry restrictions. Data comes from partner Riskline. Users can access it via a guidebook button on the trip summary screen, with some countries viewable by state or province.

Impact and considerations

COVID-19 travel restrictions change frequently, and business travelers need quick access to destination entry requirements, testing rules, and health risk information before travel. TripIt consolidates multiple sources into the itinerary, helping travel managers and travelers make informed decisions.

Logoplaste Customer Story: A Fast Track to the Cloud

Portuguese plastic packaging company Logoplaste partnered with SAP Concur and Accenture to deploy a cloud-based expense and travel management solution across 18 countries. The project rolled out in two waves, starting with Portugal, USA, Canada, Brazil, UK, and Luxembourg, then expanding to 12 more countries. After implementation, the average time between expense preparation and payment is less than 11 days, and 11 countries use an exclusively digitized process. Over 1,000 users have submitted more than 1,000 expense reports, with a user rating of 4.3/5.

Global Survey: Employees Link Travel to Business Success

A survey commissioned by SAP Concur and conducted by Wakefield Research among 3,850 business travelers across 25 global markets in April-May 2021 reveals that 96% of respondents are willing to travel for business in the next 12 months, with 65% very willing. 92% are motivated by personal reasons such as making connections and experiencing new places. However, 80% worry that without increased travel, their personal and professional lives will suffer, and 18% fear job loss. Flexibility (72%) has surpassed vaccination requirements (62%) as the most pressing need. 89% plan to add personal vacation time to business trips.