Hotels.com Report Finds 37% of Americans Are Taking More Work Trips Than Before the Pandemic :: Hospitality Trends

Business Travel Levels and Spending

Thirty-seven percent of respondents said they travel more for work now than they did before COVID-19, while business travelers reported spending an average of 10 nights a year away on work trips.

The “Booked for Business” report found that technology employees and tradespeople take the most frequent work trips, averaging five to six trips each year. Technology workers reported traveling 50% more often than they did before the pandemic.

Travel budgets differed across industries. Finance workers reported the highest average daily allowance, or per diem, at $134. Technology workers followed at $131, while employees in energy and renewable industries reported an average of $127. The overall reported daily spending limit was $115. Government workers had the lowest reported allowance, at less than $79 a day.

Respondents reported an average hotel budget of $236 per night for work travel. Technology professionals reported an average budget of $264 per night.

Hotel Preferences for Work Trips

Free breakfast was the hotel benefit business travelers cited most often. Forty-nine percent of respondents said it was among the most valuable benefits during a work trip. Loyalty rewards ranked second at 39%, followed by flexible check-in at 37%.

The report identified different preferences by profession. Sixty percent of journalism and publishing workers said a quality hotel gym is an important part of a work stay. Among sales and marketing workers, 52% said a hotel bar was a defining feature of a good business trip.

Finance and technology employees were reported to take the longest flights on average. Technology workers were also the most likely to say they adopt a different persona while traveling for work, with 69% saying they change their behavior or mindset on business trips. Sales and marketing workers followed at 62%.

Hotels.com introduced business-travel features on its website and mobile app that allow users to save work-trip preferences, identify business-ready hotels, rebook previous properties and earn rewards within the same account used for personal travel.

Work and Leisure Travel Increasingly Overlap

Nearly two-thirds of respondents, or 63%, said the best destinations for business travel make it easy to combine meetings with personal time.

New York, Los Angeles and Miami were the highest-ranked destinations for this type of travel, sometimes referred to as “bleisure.” Other destinations named in the report included London, Tokyo, Toronto, Paris, Singapore, Amsterdam and Rome.

June and September emerged as the busiest months for work trips.

Generational Differences on the Road

Gen Z respondents reported traveling for work more than any other generation in the survey. They were also more likely to change their routines and hotel choices during business trips, including using hotel laundry services and switching hotel brands.

Baby Boomers were identified as the generation most likely to remain punctual and loyal to a preferred hotel brand.

More than half of U.S. travelers surveyed (56%) said they show a different side of themselves during work trips. That figure rose to 69% among Gen Z respondents. Fifty-eight percent said they wake up earlier on work trips than on leisure trips, and the same share said they are consistently punctual when traveling for business.

The report also found that 49% of respondents described themselves as planners and 47% said they are highly organized at work. However, only 26% said they typically take charge of booking travel outside their professional lives.

On personal trips, value for money was the leading priority for 42% of respondents. Forty-one percent said they apply skills learned from managing work-travel budgets when planning leisure travel.