GBTA与Rockport Analytics联合发布《全球城市商务旅行经济影响》研究，基于2024年数据测算25个全球主要商务目的地的商务旅行经济贡献。研究显示，25城商务旅行者支出达1780亿美元，带动约2830亿美元总经济活动，贡献930亿美元本地GDP、近540亿美元工资和550亿美元税收，支撑140万个就业岗位。纽约（212亿美元）、东京（207亿美元）和伦敦（150亿美元）支出居前，七座城市合计占25城总支出的61%。每1美元商务旅行支出平均产生1.59美元本地经济产出、0.52美元GDP和0.31美元税收，每10亿美元支出平均支撑约7800个岗位。
BCD Travel发布2026年第三季度《旅游市场报告》，内容涵盖全球经济风险情景、2026年全球航空客运量、美国空管延误、IATA 2025年全球旅客调查，以及针对旅客和差旅采购方的两项可持续发展调研。报告引用IATA截至7月的数据，显示中东冲突持续影响航空需求。
BCD Travel发布差旅经理指南，提出通过五个步骤影响旅客可持续差旅选择：选定一个决策点、找到决策时刻、将指引嵌入预订流程、衡量结果、学习调整。指南引用BCD调研数据：34%旅客将供应有限和信息不足列为可持续选择的障碍；50%差旅采购方使用在线预订工具消息，但仅28%旅客记得看到过。指南还提供90天试点路线图，分三阶段推进。
The 2026 TravelDaily Summit and 2026 Business Travel & Digital Tourism Expo were held at Shanghai International Convention Center on September 22-23, drawing nearly 1,800 industry experts and corporate representatives. Direct Travel, a top-three global business travel services provider, made its first appearance as an exhibitor at a China-based industry summit, presenting its self-developed core products Anyicheng™ and Avenir as a full-chain solution covering China and global travel scenarios. DT's top Asia-Pacific management attended, including APAC Managing Director Ali Hussain, Greater China and Singapore-Malaysia Managing Director Kelly Jones, China Managing Director Qu Ning, and APAC M…
A TravelDaily Research survey shows 36.5% of business travelers reported increased travel frequency in 2026, mainly up 5-20%, driven by professional services, finance, technology, internet services and healthcare, as well as central SOEs, local SOEs and foreign-invested enterprises in China. 61% of companies have taken cost optimization measures, and 80.7% have asked TMCs to improve quality while reducing fees. About 55% of respondents had international travel experience, with 43% reporting growth. 38.7% of companies have started AI pilots, but ROI and data security are key barriers.
During the 2026 TravelDaily Summit, Ctrip Corporate Travel won the Most Trusted Travel Management Company (TMC) award at the TravelDaily Business Travel Awards (CBTA), voted by corporate travel managers and business travelers. Meanwhile, the Ctrip Corporate Travel AI Ecosystem won the AI Product Track Excellence Award at the 2026 DTA Digital Travel Awards. Launched at the April 2026 Global Partner Conference, the AI ecosystem covers the full travel and procurement workflow with seven AI Agents: travel Q&A, itinerary booking, travel approval, travel insights, compliance and risk control, financial settlement and resource procurement.
Travel data specialist Travelogix has partnered with Brisbane, Australia-based Kudos Travel Technology, with the two working as preferred technology partners to offer a more connected technology ecosystem. Current and prospective customers of both companies gain access to their respective platforms, and mutual customers can move seamlessly between platforms via new single sign-on capabilities tested with joint customer Sanford Travel, an Australia-based TMC. TMCs do not need to be customers of both providers to access shared capabilities, though doing so incurs an additional cost. The agreement initially focuses on preferred territories across the UK, Europe, Africa and Asia, while establis…
Alicia Olson, Director of Hotel Program Strategy at Advito (BCD Travel), argues that corporate hotel program success is shifting from the volume of negotiated rates secured to whether travelers can access the right hotel content through approved channels. Citing discussion in Business Travel Executive, the piece notes persistent challenges including lengthy RFP cycles, the static-rate versus dynamic-discount debate, rate loading issues and traveler compliance, while the industry pushes toward shorter, technology-enabled sourcing models. A larger negotiated portfolio does not necessarily produce a stronger program; sourcing should focus on properties supported by traveler demand and visible…
A GBTA poll of 604 industry professionals found 63% optimistic about the next 12 months, a 22-point rebound from April and the strongest outlook since October 2024. Among roughly 300 buyers, 45% expect more business trips in 2026 and 56% expect higher travel spend. Europe's optimism rose to 55% but still trails North America, Asia-Pacific and Latin America. Buyers cited rising travel costs (69%) and geopolitical uncertainty (45%) as top planning factors.
Shiji Information's Baoku travel management system announced a full AI upgrade, embedding AI travel assistant, AI admin assistant, AI operations assistant, AI reimbursement review, invoice verification and integration assistant capabilities across the travel workflow. The upgrade covers eight AI capabilities, including real-time multilingual translation (English, Japanese, Korean) and an enterprise-grade AI knowledge base. Employees can generate request drafts via natural language, administrators can query configurations and travel standards, and TMC operations staff can retrieve procedures from the knowledge base.
Tongcheng Travel and Ping An Bank signed a strategic cooperation agreement to explore joint models across finance, insurance, commerce, health and technology, embedding integrated financial services into the full journey of planning, booking, travel, destination life and industry-chain treasury management. Cooperation areas include integrated finance, settlement and cash management, and financing services. The two sides plan to prioritise pilots in travel management, credit-card travel benefits, supplier finance and cash management before extending to cross-border travel and direct corporate financing.
On September 17, Trip.Biz held its Transform 2026 summit in Singapore for overseas enterprises and partners, drawing 200 senior leaders from travel, procurement, finance and HR. The summit examined Asia-Pacific travel-management pain points and launched Agent ONE, an AI tool for overseas markets. Agent ONE comprises four collaborating agents covering itinerary planning, booking, approval and travel insights, providing end-to-end support; it is now live across all Trip.Biz overseas markets.
Ahead of Skift Global Forum, Spotnana executive chairman and CEO Steve Singh argues the industry over-focuses on search, distribution and booking, while the real value and trust sit in post-booking servicing. Spotnana's AI agents now handle routine tasks such as cancelled segments, unticketed flights and refunds, and Singh believes servicing costs can fall by 50% or more while making the traveler experience more personalized and proactive. He also sets a curation bar for conversational AI booking: presenting the options a traveler would have chosen at least 95% of the time from the full list.
BCD Travel's 2026 research highlights a gap between corporate sustainability ambition and travel-program action: 86% of surveyed travel buyers said their company has published sustainability goals, but only 47% reported travel-related goals; 61% of travelers knew of company sustainability goals, but only 33% knew of travel-related ones. 59% said sustainable-travel communications happen never or rarely. The report argues that carbon reporting alone does not change booking behavior and that sustainability should be embedded into travel policy, approval, booking, communications and supplier management, focused on a few measurable priority behaviors.
Indian online travel agency Cleartrip has launched its new Elite loyalty program, designed around pre-transaction problems rather than post-transaction rewards. Chief Growth and Business Officer Manjari Singhal said customers often hesitate when unsure whether their plans will hold. The program includes domestic flight date changes for just INR 9 (about 9.4 cents) to encourage earlier booking, plus discounts of up to 20% on three eligible hotel bookings and an INR 5,000 (about $52) benefit.
TravelDaily China reports that Yali Technology is capturing corporate travel demand through a three-track contracting system of group, regional and property-level agreements, while expanding its hotel supply network: it has enabled 10+ external brands and 1,000+ external hotels, and its own network covers 200+ cities with 800+ hotels and 6 brands; Yali Club connects over 25 million members with a central reservation rate above 70%. The article notes that in 2025 lower-tier market business-travel lodging orders grew 26.2% year on year, accounting for 43.3% of national business-travel lodging orders, yet business-ready supply has not fully kept pace: over half of employees encountered hotel q…
Thrust Carbon has added a pre-trip briefing capability to its behavioral change tool EngageAI, which it launched earlier this year. The feature can reach travelers a day or two before departure with trip-specific policy guidance such as per diems and expense rules, plus destination information including traffic, weather and rail status that could affect the travel experience. EngageAI launched in January to steer travelers toward more economical and sustainable options. The company said it is now working to add traveler-specific messaging into the briefing based on data such as travel history and expense habits.
BCD Travel published an updated business travel preparation guide in September 2026, covering the full trip cycle from first booking to post-trip expense reporting. It advises travellers to confirm trip purpose and approvals, review company travel policy (covering booking channels, preferred airlines and hotels, cabin class, ground transportation, payment methods and approval rules), check passport, visa and entry requirements, and organise itinerary and payment details. On packing, it stresses preparing around actual meetings, keeping hard-to-replace items such as laptops, chargers and presentation materials in carry-on, and building a repeatable packing and tech-kit system for frequent tr…
Sabre released the 'Compass: Navigating the Fog' report, combining Cantor Fitzgerald macroeconomic analysis and a survey of 140+ travel executives. Findings show 27% of executives are accelerating AI investment, 41% protecting their core roadmap, 15% pivoting spend to cost reduction, and only 17% curbing modernization spend. Geopolitical instability is the top threat, ranked No. 1 by 75% of respondents. 66% of executives are confident about the next 12 months, rising to 73% among travel agencies.
Perk, formerly TravelPerk, launched its spend management platform in the U.S. after a European launch. The company said about 40 percent of its new deals in Europe now are for a combined Perk Travel and Perk Spend offering, and it expects the U.S. launch to follow the same path. The U.S. currently represents about 30 percent of its global new business growth, and it recently passed the $1 billion mark in annual U.S. travel transaction value. Perk Spend lets companies integrate their own corporate card programs and add controls such as city-level per diem rates plus native ERP integrations, and allows employees to be reimbursed directly to bank accounts without going through payroll.
Lufthansa Group plans to pilot a 24-hour price guarantee for corporate bookings made through NDC channels. Eligible NDC bookings, which must include a valid Corporate Location Identifier (CLID), will have quoted fares secured for 24 hours during a trial period running from Oct. 1, 2026, to Jan. 18, 2027. Lufthansa said the initiative is designed to give corporate travelers internal approval time before finalizing their booking without missing the original quoted price. The offer applies worldwide, except for Economy Basic fares on European routes, flights to and from Japan, and services departing from China. Lufthansa also urged corporate clients to confirm whether their travel partner hold…
Perk (formerly TravelPerk) announced the expansion of its Spend platform into the United States, a region that already accounts for 30% of the group's new business globally. Perk says its US customers already spend over $1 billion a year on work travel and team events, and Perk Spend is built natively alongside its Travel and Events modules. Features include Bring Your Own Corporate Card (BYOC), direct reimbursement, global customizable per-diems, native integrations with ERPs including NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, QuickBooks and SAP S4, and a forthcoming Perk Card. Perk cites research finding 1 in 4 US companies have no formal spend tool and nearly a third of workers still submit expenses…
At the 2026 Feishu Future Unlimited Conference and Doubao Work launch event on Sept 15, Ctrip Corporate Travel presented its latest integration of travel-management AI capabilities with the Doubao Work platform. Enterprises need no extra development and employees need no redirects; by conversing with Doubao Work they can invoke Ctrip Corporate Travel's travel AI for policy inquiries, itinerary planning and booking. Ctrip Corporate Travel connected its travel Q&A Agent and travel booking Agent to Doubao Work as connectors; the former covers over 93% of travel Q&A scenarios, while the latter supports itinerary planning and one-click ordering. Ctrip Corporate Travel says traditional flight-and…
Thailand is cutting visa-free stays for travelers from more than 90 countries and territories starting Tuesday, reversing a pandemic-era expansion to curb misuse of visa privileges and illegal activities involving foreign nationals. More than 60 nationalities, including most Schengen countries, the United States and Australia, will see visa-free stays reduced from 60 days to 30. Some nationalities get 15-day exemptions, while others including Azerbaijan, Serbia and Belarus shift to visa-on-arrival. The rules also limit visa-free entries to two per year.
SAP Concur published an article describing how its travel, expense, and invoice management platform scales with business growth. It notes that expansion—new employees, new markets, multiple currencies, new regulatory requirements, and M&A entities—can quickly overwhelm finance infrastructure built for a simpler time, leading to inconsistent policy enforcement and reduced spend visibility. Concur addresses these challenges through multi-entity architecture, multi-currency support, embedded policy enforcement, real-time spend visibility, faster onboarding of users and entities, and integrations with ERP, HR, and finance systems. An FAQ section defines scalable expense management and confirms…
Traxo has launched a product integration with safety and risk management provider Everbridge, feeding off-channel booking data into the Everbridge platform. With the integration, data from Traxo—which can detect and normalize data from booking confirmations from more than 1,000 points of sale—automatically streams into Everbridge, so users can see which travelers are affected when emergency events arise. Mutual clients of Everbridge and Traxo can have data flowing from Traxo to Everbridge after an authorization, with no additional custom development needed. Traxo CEO Andres Fabris said feeding Everbridge every booking, not just those flowing through the agency, turns a strong response capab…
Travelport named Skyscanner's Naomi Hahn as chief marketing and commercial operations officer. Hahn will lead Travelport's go-to-market, marketing and communications, and commercial operations functions. The company did not specify an effective date for her appointment. Hahn most recently was VP of strategy, operations and data at Skyscanner, which she joined in March 2020, and previously spent more than 11 years at Auto Trader UK.
Hyatt Hotels Corp. and Delta Air Lines announced a long-term loyalty collaboration allowing elite members of World of Hyatt and Delta SkyMiles to earn dual points on qualifying travel. At the same time, American Airlines and Hyatt will end the enhanced loyalty relationship they launched last year. The companies said members will see no interruption in earning, selecting and redeeming eligible benefits for the remainder of each program's earning year. Members who linked accounts before midnight Central Time on Nov. 15 can continue earning World of Hyatt awards through Loyalty Point Rewards through Feb. 28, 2027, and AAdvantage awards through Milestone Rewards through Dec. 31, 2026. After the…
Omio announced that Omio Business, its platform designed for small businesses and individual travellers such as freelancers, has expanded from its earlier UK launch to global availability. The platform lets users book flights, hotels, trains and buses in one place, with VAT-compliant invoicing and a centralized booking history. Omio said it has seen promising demand, particularly in Italy, Spain and the United States. Separately, the wider Omio platform announced a $10 million investment in July for expansion across Japan and Southeast Asia, and parent company Omio Group agreed in July to acquire Rail Europe.
Direct Travel China announced the deep integration of its two flagship business travel platforms, ANYICHENG and Avenir, into a coordinated, self-controlled global digital service capability matrix. The company said this is not only data interconnection but a system-level response to uncertainty in multinational travel programs. Based on this, Direct Travel is delivering to Chinese enterprises an ANYICHENG x Avenir global integrated travel solution, built on a TaaS (Travel as a Service) architecture with open API interfaces to connect with existing enterprise systems and provide unified response to domestic and international travel needs.
TravelDaily Research Institute released the '2026 Q2 China Business Travel Market Trend Insight Report', indicating accelerated divergence and deepening restructuring. Domestic business travel frequency is mainly growing but shows K-shaped divergence; international business travel penetration is rising, with corporate travel managers expecting higher growth elasticity in international spending than domestic.
Fenbeitong published 2026 travel platform selection recommendations for large listed companies and group enterprises. The article compares API-integrated vs. native integrated travel and expense platforms, highlighting native platforms' advantages in scenario-based fine-grained control, full-chain audit trails, and unified governance across domestic and overseas. It provides a five-dimension evaluation framework, selection suggestions by business scale, and real cases.
BCD Travel's consulting division Advito has launched AI Gateway, a new service to help companies plan and adopt AI tools. The service includes AI readiness assessment, strategic planning, governance and implementation planning, and adoption and change management guidance. Advito says AI doesn't automatically create value; employees must understand how tools fit into their work. The service has been applied to large global organizations, including an investment firm targeting 70,000 employees.
BCD Travel published a guide to help travelers and travel managers handle situations where a hotel cannot honor a confirmed reservation. The guide recommends booking through approved channels, using tools like Tripsource for itinerary information, and provides steps when a hotel 'walks' guests, including asking for alternative accommodation, requesting transportation, and confirming reimbursement.
This article addresses travel management needs of large global groups, highlighting five core capabilities: unified control, local adaptation, cross-border compliance, multi-currency accounting, and finance-business integration. Four case studies demonstrate how Fenbeitong solves data fragmentation and compliance gaps of traditional TMCs and overseas expense systems, achieving cost reduction and efficiency.
Acai Travel launches Acai Desk, an AI helpdesk that integrates GDS, NDC content, flight booking tool Lleego, and Microsoft 365, allowing agency teams to work from a single system. AI routing manages case queues. Acai says the average travel advisor spends 20 minutes per case, mostly finding context. TMCs like Campbell Travel, Nautalia, and Connections Group have adopted it.
At GBTA Convention 2026, over 470 travel buyers participated in an interactive survey. Results show 78% already use generative AI, and 92% believe AI will make their jobs more strategic. 57% cite influencing internal stakeholders as their biggest challenge. 92% say best supplier relationships are long-term partnerships. 64% find groups and meetings harder to manage than transient travel.
Fenbeitong released a selection guide for domestic and overseas travel platforms for large groups, proposing ten core evaluation dimensions covering supply chain resources, agreement hosting, global control, AI capabilities, and financial-business integration, with scenario-based recommendations. The guide emphasizes the advantages of native integrated platforms over traditional TMC stitching solutions, and includes a customer case showing a 14.2% reduction in overall costs and a reduction in reconciliation cycle to 4 days.
This article provides an in-depth evaluation of seven major business travel platforms, focusing on large enterprises with multiple subsidiaries and mixed domestic and international travel. It analyzes the differences between integrated platforms with native architecture versus those relying on API integrations, offering selection criteria and a case study. Fenbeitong leads with a score of 95.8, followed by Shengyi Technology and Alibaba Business Travel. The article emphasizes data consistency, pre-trip controls, and multi-entity adaptability, with recommendations for enterprises of different sizes.
Navan announced that CEO Ariel Cohen and CFO Aurélien Nolf will participate in a fireside chat at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia + Technology Conference in San Francisco on September 10, 2026. The event will be webcast live and a replay will be available. Navan is a global AI-powered business travel and expense management platform.