Business Travel & Expense Management Trends for Finance Leaders in 2025

Navigating 2025 and beyond: Emerging trends in business travel and expense management for corporate travel managers and finance leaders

Success in business requires knowing where you’ve been, where you’re at, and what’s coming your way. That’s particularly true with the critical functions of business travel and expense management. Immersed in T&E and maintaining close relationships with the people doing the actual work, our experts are well-positioned to predict 2025 business travel trends and expense management trends, too, while sharing insights to help organisations move forward faster.

With processes, technology, and people working together to manage cost, increase productivity, improve analysis, and deliver value, there’s a theme running through their predictions: interconnectivity.

So, dig in and learn about business travel trends, best practices, and how integrated solutions connect them all. Discover:

• More about top T&E predictions involving artificial intelligence (AI), travel growth, C-suite collaboration, and travel management company (TMC) consolidation and content fragmentation

• Four priorities for CFOs in the year ahead.

• What business travellers and corporate travel managers think about the state of travel.

• How you can align your business travel programme with the industry trends.

What T&E trends are predicted for 2025? 

The experts’ quick answers are that organisations will expect to get more from every corporate travel dollar, AI will handle more work, TMCs will keep consolidating while business travellers benefit from broader content options, and finance leaders will drive technological change.

But what will that mean for business travel management and business expense management? A closer look provides perspective.

 

Travel & Expense 2025

Discover more about the top business travel and expense management trends and learn ways finance leaders and corporate travel managers can respond.

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1. Slowing inflation, rising opportunity and expectations 

Whether your business travel programme’s budget is rising or flat, you want to get the most from it. An integrated platform can improve spending visibility, minimise mistakes, adjust forecasts, deter fraud, and consistently apply travel and spend policies. Along the way, businesses can address rising business traveller expectations with tools that provide consumer-like booking experiences, simplify expense reporting, and assure business traveller safety and flexibility with location safety scores, health information, and real-time notifications about travel disruptions.

2. AI expansion, yet caution

Finance leaders will more fully embrace AI-powered solutions in 2025 to handle energy-intensive tasks like expense report reviews, trip estimates, and invoice handling. The intent is to reduce the time everyone spends using T&E tools, but disconnected platforms can limit AI’s benefits. Organisations also must recognise users are slow to fully trust AI: Business travellers are accepting of AI making recommendations and estimating costs but aren’t yet willing to let it make bookings.

3. Consolidating TMCs, growing new content benefits

As TMCs keep combining, savings could trickle down to customers. That makes it imperative to have technology that allows businesses to choose a TMC that best suits their needs. Content fragmentation will likely slow, but organisations will begin to realise the advantages of New Distribution Capability (NDC) from airlines. That increases the importance of a booking tool that incorporates NDC content while bringing access to low-cost carriers, wider hotel options, rail networks, and nontraditional suppliers.

4. Collaborating with the C-suite and beyond

Compliance. Sustainability and other environment, social, and governance (ESG) initiatives. Data security and privacy. Growth, productivity, efficiency, and technological innovation. The list of CFO responsibilities just keeps expanding, so finance leaders must work closely with CEOs in 2025 and collaborate with IT, HR, and other leaders to succeed.

What are CFOs’ top priorities?

Both the CFO role and integrated technology for business travel management and business expense management will take leaps forward. From integrated solutions to cross-functional collaboration, interconnectivity is the key. And with heightened responsibilities come additional key priorities for CFOs.

• Lead on growth, reinvention. Nearly two-third of CFOs – 63% – were investing in cutting-edge technologies in 2024. That’s a strong commitment to transformation, but finance leaders also should bolster change and risk management and learn to tell the story that technology gains take time to unfold.

• Work past AI hype. Generative AI caught attention, but the focus is turning toward long-term benefits and ROI—assessments CFOs can make. Compliance, auditing, and planning are ideal AI use cases, so finance leaders should prioritise digital skills and keep a close watch on global regulatory efforts. 

• Integrate ESG. Tracking sustainability is a rising responsibility but also a performance driver. A responsible approach can strengthen customer loyalty and open new markets, so ESG measures should be integrated into financial reporting. Organisations can support sustainability by using solutions that guide business travellers to greener options and track impacts.  

• Strengthen cybersecurity. With an estimated £7.1 trillion in cybercrime in 2024, CFO responsibilities now include thwarting theft. Instead of just losing sleep, they must work with internal IT experts to institute cybersecurity best practices, safeguard assets, educate teams, allocate prevention resources, and develop response plans.

• Address talent crunch. Too few people and too little expertise complicate every priority. With retirements and fewer young people drawn to finance, leaders must make roles more attractive. Working with HR, they should explore younger generations’ values, adapt training, prioritise upskilling, and automate to free employees for more meaningful work.

What have we seen in travel this year? 

Our predictions build on ongoing trends, and each year we zoom in on what people who live and work travel – including business travellers and travel managers – are experiencing. It’s an ongoing balancing act for managers to meet business traveller demands and satisfy company goals through their business travel programme.

Our 6th annual global business travel survey illustrated the tension and pointed to priorities:

• 66% think they haven’t had equal travel opportunities, with seniority level, age, location, physical appearance, gender, and sexual orientation cited as reasons.

• 76% of business travellers enjoy travel and 67% see it as career-critical.

• Nearly 9 in 10 business travellers were affected by trip delays, cancellations, or re-routing that forced meeting adjustments or unplanned days on the road.

• Business travellers say their employers’ top focuses are providing flexible options (40%), reducing costs (31%), and increasing sustainable options (29%).

Overall, 91% of employees report cutbacks on blended travel, overnight stays, direct flights, and business or premium class seating. The constraints can make employees testy, but travel managers can lower the heat by surveying employees about needs, providing tools, adjusting policies, and pressuring suppliers about disruptions. 

Business traveller, corporate travel manager, and SMB business traveller insights

Business travellers and travel managers naturally have different perspectives on business travel trends. Organisation size and location matter, which is why we provide a Global Business Travellers Report, Global Travel Managers Report, and Global Small to Midsize Businesses Report.

The Global Travel Managers Report paints a picture of stress, with corporate travel managers feeling unsupported, overburdened, and unappreciated. Virtually every manager expects this year to be more challenging. They’re being asked to take on more strategic roles, show ROI, and use AI—but many report they lack the tools and training to do it. In fact, 41% planned to job hunt within 12 months. Among the challenges they expect are rising safety concerns, employees skipping booking tools, airlines not sharing content, and delays and cancellations. As a possible path forward, though, the most-satisfied corporate travel managers have employers that emphasise flexible travel over cost-cutting.

How to evolve your corporate travel programme to align with business travel trends

Cost, evolving expectations, duty of care, new content, AI, sustainability, cybersecurity, and more are reflected in our T&E predictions. Together, they lead to the question of how to transform your programme for the evolution of business travel.

Our experts have suggestions that incorporate strategy, collaboration, and integrated T&E solutions to align corporate travel programmes with business travel trends.

• Manage costs and meet demands for flexibility. Corporate travel managers can address booking-tool evasion and business class use by embracing transparency and technology. Business travellers can be brought back to the fold with expanded airline options, simplified tools, and an understanding that duty of care relies upon visibility into trip plans and locations. Business class use is thorny, but companies can mandate economy for all, systematise exception requests, or provide other travel perks instead of legroom.

• Expand travel content. Integrated solutions allow corporate travel programmes to capture supplier-direct bookings and incorporate NDC content, which delivers benefits such as seat upgrades, personalisation, and dynamic pricing. Corporate travel managers and finance leaders gain a rich source of data, cost control, and compliance.

• Infuse AI and automation. Business travellers are open to but cautious about AI. Leadership can build confidence by advocating for and deploying intelligent tools to provide travel estimates, personalise bookings, and ensure duty of care. As a result, data, discounts, and safety improve and bosses are satisfied.

• Improve experience and collaboration. The rising profile of corporate travel managers and finance leaders increases the necessity of collaboration. From both positions, leaders can work together to advocate for technology that streamlines work and adds efficiency. Travel and HR managers should collaborate on common goals, such as elevating the employee experience and enhancing duty of care. In the process, they can raise productivity, retention, and the company’s attractiveness as an employer.

Conclusion 

T&E trends and challenges are intertwined, with this interconnectivity delivering both complexity and opportunity. Companies seeking a competitive advantage can leverage business travel management and business expense management solutions. These technologies deliver the tools, data, and insights businesses need to seize opportunities and move forward faster.