Originally scheduled for release on March 31, BTN Intelligence’s 2025 State of the Industry Report was held back for further research and interviews. Sudden economic uncertainty, mainly tied to tariff policies coming out of the United States, upended markets around the world and has led to corporate travel uncertainty for 2025. BTN as a news outlet will continue to report on the developing economic story and how it is impacting the corporate travel outlook.

BTN Intelligence’s State of the Industry report takes into account current economic information, supplier earnings statements and buyer sentiment surveys BTN has gathered to date and sets on that backdrop the major buying trends, supplier strategy changes and technological innovations that are poised to transform the business travel industry.

2025 State of the Industry Report

Reading BTN’s 2025 State of the Industry Report

Each part of this BTN Intelligence Report is divided into two sections:

The Data Story is offered as an executive summary and top-line analysis of BTN’s survey data. It offers a quick read of the issues driving the industry.

The Intelligence Report is deeper dive into industry dynamics and factors contributing to the economic, ecosystem and innovation challenges in the market today.

BTN Intelligence surveyed 314 travel buyers in Jan. 15 to Feb. 15 to inform this report; the editorial team followed up with 145 buyers in April to enhance the original survey.

BTN conducted two sets of surveys to inform this report. From Jan. 15-Feb. 15, BTN fielded a 40-question survey to business travel buyers only to gather projections about travel volumes going into 2025 and queried buyers about their recent experiences negotiating their programs; working with suppliers; service levels received; technology resources, budgets and constraints; the prospects of travel innovation in the coming year; and how they would redefine the business travel value chain if they could. It received 314 total buyer responses. BTN also conducted from Apr. 3-4 a flash survey of 145 buyer respondents to re-survey their business travel volume outlook in the wake of the sudden stock market and global economic turmoil.

This report is supported by more than 40 buyer, supplier, consultant, technology provider and travel agency interviews to provide richer context around the survey data. An acknowledgements section at the end of this report lists interviewees able to disclose their names and companies. BTN offered nearly two dozen buyers the option of anonymity in order to elicit their most candid responses on supplier relationships and emerging program strategies. Background information or quotations based on confidential sources have been corroborated by on-record sources. BTN has also synthesized concepts and commentary from our BTN Communities (600-plus buyer members) to inform the background and analysis provided in this report. In line with our Community guidelines, none of the commentary was directly reported from those meetings.