By the end of the year, Europe will have recorded around 600 million business trips – 0.7 per cent more than in the previous year. At the same time, according to the GBTA, the costs rose by 7 per cent. Companies are scrutinising more closely which business trips deliver which benefits, according to a VDR survey.
Amidst all these new developments, the key question remains: which business trips really help companies move forward?” emphasised Christoph Carnier, President of the German Business Travel Association (VDR), last week in Vienna. The “GBTA and VDR Europe Conference” took place there in partnership with the Austrian association ABTA. Almost 1,400 business travel experts from 41 countries attended. The key, the VDR President added, is not “to organise as many trips as possible, but to facilitate the right ones – where face-to-face meetings deliver genuine business value”.
Accordingly, the international conference focused on the question of the value of business travel. According to the Global Business Travel Administration (GBTA), business travel expenditure in Europe is projected to reach 404 billion euros in 2026 – a 7 per cent increase on the previous year. By contrast, the estimated 600 million business trips by European companies and organisations represent an increase of just 0.7 per cent. “Expenditure is therefore rising significantly faster than the number of trips,” note the VDR and GBTA.
This is consistent with the finding that, in the latest VDR sentiment survey among German companies, 55 per cent state that they intend to manage their business travel more selectively than in the previous year. For more than six in ten, costs have become a more important factor in travel decisions, whilst 45 per cent place greater emphasis on the business purpose and benefits of a trip. In general, business travel remains important for most companies in driving projects forward, maintaining customer relationships and tapping into new markets.
AI in Business Travel: four scenarios
In light of these figures, the VDR emphasises once again how important professional travel management remains – one that does not assess business travel solely from a cost perspective, but aligns it with corporate objectives. The association has also just published a white paper outlining the possible development paths for AI in business travel. The study by the Institute of Tourism, Travel & Hospitality (ITTH) at Heilbronn University, commissioned by the VDR and led by Prof. Dr Stephan Bingemer, describes four plausible scenarios for Germany, Austria and Switzerland:
- Proliferation of AI Agents – Several specialised AI agents take on individual tasks, whilst the system landscape remains fragmented. Transparency and controllability decline.
- Autonomous travel operating system – An integrated AI system manages business travel processes largely autonomously. Travel management becomes a governance body.
- Transparent Cockpit – AI provides analyses and recommendations, whilst the decision-making power remains with humans. The focus is on transparency.
- Manual Control Centre – AI provides selective support; the system landscape remains heterogeneous. Humans retain decision-making authority.
As in virtually every company that needs to define its AI strategy, these scenarios raise a key question: who will control the decision-making logic, data flows and interfaces in future? In any case, it is clear that in travel management, operational tasks will become less important, whilst governance, rule-setting, data management and compliance will become more important. The topics of ‘bleisure’ and ‘workation’ have also been developing in this direction for some time, becoming strategic issues that the VDR has also taken up as its cause.
Photo: iStock.com/izusek
