The Global Business Travel Association forecasts that business travel prices will remain elevated through 2026, signaling at least another year and a half of cost pressure for corporate travel budgets and the agencies, suppliers and booking platforms that serve them.

The projection, reported by Business Travel Executive, extends a pricing cycle that has squeezed corporate buyers since the post-pandemic travel rebound. For travel management companies and procurement teams, the forecast implies negotiated rates, hotel programs and air contracts will stay expensive relative to pre-2020 baselines well into 2026.

What does sustained pricing pressure mean for corporate buyers?

Elevated prices across business travel categories force buyers into harder negotiations and tighter policy enforcement. Corporate travel managers will likely respond by pushing suppliers for deeper volume discounts, shifting share toward preferred partners and tightening compliance on out-of-policy bookings, where costs typically run highest.

For suppliers — airlines, hotel chains and ground transport operators — the forecast supports continued pricing power in the corporate segment. Hoteliers in particular have used the recovery to reset corporate rates upward, and a forecast of sustained elevation through 2026 suggests chains see little incentive to soften rate structures in upcoming request-for-proposal cycles.

Who does the forecast affect most?

• Travel management companies, which must demonstrate savings against a rising rate environment to justify fees.
• Corporate procurement teams, whose 2025 and 2026 travel budgets must absorb prices that the industry's own trade body expects to stay high.
• Booking platforms and distribution players, since cost pressure accelerates corporate interest in content breadth, rate parity and ancillary-fee transparency.
• Suppliers, which can defend current rate levels with a credible industry forecast backing them.

How should sellers of travel read a forecast like this?

A forecast is a projection, not a measured result. GBTA's outlook reflects the association's read on demand, capacity and cost inputs across the business travel sector, and buyers should test it against their own program data as 2026 negotiations approach. Still, the direction matters: the industry's principal trade body sees no price relief on the horizon, which shifts bargaining dynamics before a single rate is negotiated.

The forecast also lands amid a corporate travel market still working through a uneven recovery across regions and segments. Sustained elevated pricing through 2026 would keep total travel spend rising even where trip volumes plateau, a scenario that rewards suppliers with strong corporate programs and pressures buyers whose budgets were set on assumptions of normalization.

For the trade, the practical consequence is sequencing: 2025 rate negotiations and 2026 budget planning now proceed against an explicit expectation that prices will not revert. Travel sellers who can prove savings in an elevated-price market — through content, data or policy tooling — hold the stronger pitch.