The Annual Meeting
Every November in Dubai: an invitation-led gathering of corporate buyers, their C-suite, governments and the world's leading travel brands.
The WBTF year
The global platform for the economics of human mobility
There is no business without business travel.
The World Business Travel Forum brings together the corporate buyers who hold the purchasing power, the chief executives and finance leaders who set the strategy, and the governments and travel industry that move the global economy. Headquartered in Dubai, where every continent connects.
Our founding conviction
Since the first human beings traded across mountains and deserts, commerce has moved at the speed of people. Technology changes how we meet. It has never removed the need to meet.
The World Business Travel Forum
Every great economic era was built by people who travelled to do business: the caravans of the Silk Road, the Phoenician sea lanes, the merchants of the Hanseatic League, the jet age that shrank the planet.
Today, business travel is not a cost line to be minimised. It is the infrastructure of trust on which deals, investment, innovation and talent depend. The World Business Travel Forum exists to make that case at the highest level, with data, with leaders and with one shared agenda.
Our mission and governanceFive thousand years of business travel
The world was built by people who travelled to trade.
Every route that carried goods also carried people, and with them, ideas, trust and the deals that shaped civilisations.
- c. 1900 BCE
Assyrian merchants
Traders from Assur run caravans to Kanesh in Anatolia, leaving thousands of written business letters.
- c. 1000 BCE
Phoenician sea lanes
Merchant fleets link the Levant to the whole Mediterranean, founding trading posts as they go.
- 2nd c. BCE
The Silk Road
Overland routes connect China, Central Asia, Persia and Arabia, the original global supply chain.
- 13th c.
Hanseatic League
A network of merchant cities across northern Europe creates shared rules for trade and travel.
- 1958
The jet age
Transatlantic jet services begin. A business trip shrinks from days to hours.
- 2026
1.84 billion trips
The world takes an estimated 1.84 billion business trips in a single year.
Before there were markets, there were journeys.
The economy in motion
Business travel is one of the largest engines of the global economy.
Behind every figure are meetings that closed deals, opened markets and built relationships that no screen can replace.
$1.71T
Forecast global business travel spending in 2026
1.84B
Business trips expected worldwide in 2026
+8.4%
Growth in global spending in 2025, to $1.59 trillion
$2T+
Projected annual spending by 2030
Source: GBTA Business Travel Index 2026.
Dubai 2027 · Fourth edition
Business Travel Reimagined
AI, Experience and the Future of Corporate Mobility. One day in which the people who buy, finance and deliver business travel set the agenda for the year ahead, with corporate buyers in every session.
88Days
14Hours
05Minutes
More than an event
An institution working all year round.
The Annual Meeting is where the community gathers each November. The work continues every day through monthly research, councils, regional editions and partnerships.
Global research
A monthly white paper, built on buyer data, feeding the annual Value of Travel Report and Global Mobility Barriers Index: measuring what business travel returns, not just what it costs.
Insights & reportsGlobal councils
Standing communities that put buyers alongside the chief executives, finance and people leaders they report to, shaping the agenda between meetings.
The councilsThe Dubai Declaration
A shared statement on the value of business travel, presented with the WBTF Commitment at the 2027 meeting and open for organisations to endorse.
Read the principlesRegional editions
Smaller, travelling one-day editions through the year, starting in the region and moving on to Europe, the Americas and Asia Pacific.
Regional calendarPartnership
A limited community of strategic partners from aviation, hospitality, payments and technology who fund the Forum's mission.
Membership tiersThree threads through everything we do
Buyers first. Evidence always. Sustainably.
Every event, report, council and partnership is built on the same three commitments.
The buyer at the centre
Corporate buyers and their purchasing power are the heart of the Forum. Buyers never pay to take part, and their data is never sold or shared with suppliers. Partners earn access to buyers who choose to meet them.
The Buyer CommunityEvidence every month
A monthly white paper, built with data from the buyer community, turns the Forum's conversations into evidence. Each paper feeds the regional editions and the annual flagship reports.
The research cycleSustainability in everything
Every white paper carries a sustainability chapter. Every event publishes its footprint. Every partner commits to credible pathways for lower-impact business travel.
Our commitmentWho convenes
The room where buyers, boards and the industry meet.
Buyers hold the purchasing power. The C-suite holds the strategic mandate. The Forum brings both into the room.
The Forum brings company leadership into the same room as the travel industry. Corporate buyers, finance, HR and security directors meet airlines, hotel groups, travel management companies, distribution, payment and technology providers, alongside policymakers and media of local, regional and global reach.
Corporates
Travel and procurement buyers, with the finance, HR, sustainability and executive leaders they report to.
Industry
Airlines, hotels, TMCs, GDS, payments, mobility, insurance.
Insights
Intelligence for the people who move business.
A monthly white paper, Data of the Month, leadership interviews and analysis from the WBTF editorial team.
Keeping pace with prices: what the 2026 Deloitte Corporate Travel Study means for your budget
Corporate travel spend is rising, not because companies are taking more trips, but because the same trips cost more.
Leader of the MonthSergiu Les and Kirill Matalov, Roundtrip
Our monthly conversation with the leaders shaping corporate travel.
GuideFive steps to a travel budget that reflects the true cost of business trips
Volume, route mix, booking behaviour and policy exceptions all move the number.