ANALYSIS – 2026: Five trends every travel manager should know for the year ahead

Business travel is always a fast-changing sector and 2026 will be no exception. Here are our predictions for the big issues set to cross travel managers’ desks over the next 12 months.

The Middle East will lead fast-rising hotel rates

Average daily hotel rates will rise 4.9 per cent globally in 2026, according to a Travel Market Report published by BCD Travel. The steepest increases will be in the Middle East, the report says: up 8.2 per cent. The only region where rates will rise slowly is North America, up only 2.2 per cent, mainly because of a weak 2.0 per cent increase in the USA.

The good news for corporate travel buyers is that BCD forecasts only modest air fare increases in 2026 – up just 1.1 per cent globally. Once again, the lowest rises will be in North America, where fares will be almost unchanged. Worldwide, economy fares will grow a little faster than business class.

AI will play a bigger role in organising travel

Artificial intelligence is steadily growing its influence on business travel. At the moment the biggest innovations are in generative AI, which uses large language models to communicate concise targeted information, for example by answering travellers’ and travel managers’ questions through chatbots.

2026 is likely to see the first steps to introducing agentic AI, where the technology will, for example, check an executive’s online calendar to see where they are going and automatically book a trip for them in line with their personal preferences.

But there could be missteps along the way. AI can only carry out its tasks based on the data fed into it, and the potential for hallucinations – delivering and acting on inaccurate information – is a hazard that travel managers will need to watch out for very carefully.

Expect more changes in the international TMC market

2025 was a year of major travel management company acquisitions, not least the world’s largest TMC American Express Global Business Travel making itself even bigger by buying global number three player CWT. Expect more volatility in the market in 2026. For different reasons there are question marks over the ownership of several leading TMCs in the year ahead, so there could be even more more radical changes than in 2025.

Companies will pay more attention to managing meetings

Businesses have been slower to centralise the buying and oversight of meetings and events than of regular corporate travel. There are good reasons to explain this situation, including poor visibility of which people within the organisation book meetings and who are the many budget holders.

The relative neglect of meetings could change in 2026, not least because of the steep increases in hotel prices already discussed above. It’s not just room rates that are becoming more expensive but also meeting space rental and other major expenses including food and beverage.

There is growing awareness too that risks around meetings are not being managed properly. Vulnerabilities include inability to track meetings participants in the case of an emergency and not performing proper health and safety checks for leisure activities attached to events. Companies are likely to step up their duty of care in 2026.

It’s going to be another bumpy ride!

There’s only one thing we can predict with complete confidence, which is that the unpredictability and volatility of 2025 will continue into 2026. There are increasing geopolitical flashpoints around the world, as well as shifting diplomatic alliances and obstacles such as tariffs to global trade. It’s certainly worth developing crisis management plans for supporting travellers if you don’t currently have any, or revisiting your existing ones if you do.