Big companies pull back while smaller firms fuel growth, with costs, sustainability, and hotel demand patterns reshaping 2025 travel spend
Sep 30, 2025
Corporate travel is still expanding in 2025, but momentum is uneven. Deloitte’s latest survey shows smaller firms leaning into growth while large companies pull back, with rising costs and sustainability pressures shaping decisions. For hotels, the signals are mixed: corporate room rates remain under cost pressure, group demand has softened, and conferences are once again the strongest anchor for business-travel-driven stays. Demand is becoming more selective, with training, live events, and governance-level oversight emerging as key drivers.
Key takeaways
- Large companies retrench: One in five big firms (>$7.5M in 2024 spend) expect budget cuts in 2025, while most smaller companies plan increases.
- Shift in trip frequency: Overall travel incidence dropped from 36% in 2024 to 31% in 2025, with frequent travelers scaling back monthly trip counts.
- Events and training drive hotel nights: Conferences remain the top reason for travel and the biggest driver of group bookings, while training and L&D surged as growth drivers, especially for smaller firms.
- Hotel demand under pressure: CoStar reports a 0.8% decline in US RevPAR and a 3% drop in group demand in Q2 2025, underscoring muted corporate lodging growth.
- Rising costs and sustainability pressures: More than half of travel managers cite higher prices as a top constraint, while sustainability targets increasingly require cutting trip volume by 20% or more.
- Booking behavior evolves: Frequent travelers show higher compliance with corporate booking tools, while OTA use is falling as corporate platforms improve user experience.
- Responsible travel gains traction: Companies are moving from tracking sustainability data to embedding greener options—like SAFs and flagged hotel choices—in booking tools and policies.
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