Prudent companies on travel expenses while commercial uncertainty is looming

Companies continue to spend on business trips, but are strategic about how they allocate these dollars in the midst of current trade uncertainties, according to new reports from the Navan travel and expenditure platform and the Global Business Travel Association.

The business spending activity of companies increased by 15% from one year to the second in the second quarter of 2025, according to a business trip index published on Tuesday from Navan.

The Navan index, supported by NASDAQ, is derived from millions of business commercial transactions on its platform. He examines the amount spent and the number of transactions relating to air trips, hotel reservations and corporate card expenditure.

Amy Butte, CFO of Navan, said in an interview that by discussing with other financial leaders in recent months, she had never had the impression that business leaders would stop spending business trips completely. Instead, they are in “wait and see” mode.

“If you make choices on where you are prudent, we do not see that people are cautious in the field of relationships, whether with their customers or with their teammates. We always see the expenses allocated to travel as a key element of any commercial strategy,” said Butte.

But while global business trips is expected to reach a new summit of $ 1.57 billion in 2025, according to a Monday report from the Global Business Travel Association, this total represents growth of 6.6% of one year on the other, which represents an increase of 10.4% which was previously planned. GBTA cited trade tensions, political uncertainty and economic pressures such as the reasons for more moderate growth.

A series of feelings of feeling by GBTA also shows that the optimism of corporate trips for the rest of 2025 seems silent. The percentage of respondents who declared that they were optimistic about the overall prospects of the commercial travel industry in 2025 fell 67% in November 2024 to 31% in April and lowered this month slightly at 28%.

The conclusions of the two reports, gathered with the comments of the CEOs of airlines last week, show that C-Suite managers are still widely left in mode of fluid tariff policies of President Donald Trump, but companies now seem to have a better reading on how they will manage uncertainty.

“Historically, corporate trips were the first thing, one of the simplest things, to minimize if you are a business”, ” Delta airlines CEO Ed Bastian said when calling the company’s profits this month, adding that business trips to the airline were stable over one year on the other.

But Butte said that Navan had not seen any deposit in business trips. Instead, companies change the way they spend.

For example, Butte said that companies were continuing to engage in face -to -face -in -face meetings, rather than spending in major group outings. The Navan index shows that spending on personal meals, which means individual meetings held over a meal, increased by 9.8% compared to last year, while team expenses and meals were the only category of the report that decreased.

Navan saw a certain compression earlier in the year in the share of the higher priced plane tickets which were first-class or business class, said Butte, but she added that the platform has since experienced an acceleration as uncertainty has decreased.

Air ticket prices have also decreased this year so far, which means that companies and consumers are spending less in plane tickets. The plane ticket dropped by 3.5% in June compared to the previous year, while inflation increased overall, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

GBTA CEO Suzanne Neufang said in an interview that financial directors had not reduced travel expenses entirely, but are looking for effective means to bring employees on the road. This may look like reservation of multicity travel, to plan several meetings by travel or to book fewer travel per month, she said.

Neufang said the business travel industry has concentrated in the past five years to ensure that each trip has a goal and offers a return on investment.

“It is over the time when there is a really traveling frivolous business,” said Neufang.

The new conclusions on travel expenses also occur while the airlines report their quarterly profits.

When Delta Generations published on July 10, Bastian said that it expects the confidence of consumers and businesses to improve in the second half, creating an environment for travel demand to accelerate.

Delta and other airlines saw the demand for travel lower than expected at the beginning of the year, in particular customers sensitive to prices traveling at the national level. Bastian said in April that Trump’s trade policies injured reservations.

Bastian took a more positive tone this month, telling CNBC that business trips stabilized because companies have more clarity and trust than earlier this year. But he said that corporate trips comply with last year, not for 5% to 10% growth that Delta was waiting for at the start of the year.

Meanwhile, Delta President Glen Hauenstein said in a profits call this month that business trends were “agitated” and that the overall company volumes should be “flattered” last year.

United Airlines Generations last week. CEO Scott Kirby said during the company’s call to analysts that until now this month, the airline has seen two-digit acceleration from the commercial demand while uncertainty has decreased.

Andrew Nocella, Executive Vice-President and Commercial Director of United, has added that the growth in trade traffic is “at all levels” and is not limited to any singular center or vertical, which, according to him, reflects a macroeconomic uncertainty.

Southwest Airlines,, Alaska Airlines And American airlines are planned to report their quarterly results this week.