Business travel regains confidence, but every trip still has to earn its place

The corporate travel market has emerged from another period of disruption with something it lacked only five months ago: confidence.

The latest Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) poll for Sep-2026 shows 63% of business travel professionals are optimistic about the next 12 months, up 22 percentage points from Apr-2026, while pessimism has collapsed from 24% to just 7%. Expectations for actual activity have improved alongside sentiment: 45% of corporate buyers expect business travel volumes to increase in 2026, while 56% expect spending to rise.

Yet the gap between those numbers is more revealing than the rebound itself. Travel spending is growing faster than trip volumes, demonstrating that corporate travel has not escaped the structural inflation and complexity affecting the wider air transport market.

The emerging model is therefore neither a return to pre-pandemic business travel nor a continuation of the defensive posture seen during the Iran conflict and fuel-price shock. It is a more selective market in which growth, customer relationships and collaboration justify travel, while cost, geopolitical exposure, safety and internal approval processes increasingly determine what does not happen.

For airlines, airports and corporate travel intermediaries, the opportunity is substantial - but volume alone is no longer the measure of recovery.