Business travel grew strongly in the third quarter, according to Navan's Business Travel Index, which measures spending and volume in transactions across Navan's travel and expense management platform.
Combined business travel spending and volume growth during the quarter pushed the index, which is measured on a baseline of 100, to 178.4 in the third quarter, up 20 percent year over year, according to Navan. That marks the highest year-over-year growth for a quarter since Navan established the index at the start of 2023.
For international travel, spending growth is outpacing volume growth by a widening pace, with Navan's sub-index for international spending growth 11.8 percent higher than international volume growth for the quarter. In the third quarter of 2024, that gap was 7 percent. The gap between spending and volume growth in domestic travel is narrower, with the subindex for domestic spending growth only 2.2 percent higher than that of domestic volume growth, according to Navan.
Broken down by industry—and in a trend that certainly won't be repeated in the fourth quarter—government travel had the largest year-over-year increase in combined business travel spending and volume in the third quarter, with its index up 28 percent year over year. Other industries with index growth higher than 20 percent year over year for the quarter include financial services (24.3 percent), media and entertainment (24.2 percent) and professional services (22.9 percent).
Two industries had year-over-year declines in their combined travel spending and volume in the third quarter: healthcare and life sciences, down 9.8 percent, and nonprofit organizations, down 10.9 percent, according to Navan.
Navan noted that the third quarter tends to be the strongest of the year for business travel, with slowing in the fourth quarter amid the end-of-the-year holidays.