Business Travel in the U.S. Defies Turmoil, Say Navan, Travelperk

Business travel showed double-digit growth in the first quarter of 2025, according to booking data shared by two leading travel management platforms with Skift, and forward-looking bookings remain strong despite a decline in early April.

According to Navan, company flight bookings rose 13% year-on-year and hotel bookings rose 9% in the three months to March. March alone was particularly strong, with flight and hotel bookings up 19% compared to the same period last year.

However, so far, both flights and hotel bookings through Navan have dropped by 9% compared to the same period last year.

Nevertheless, it is unclear whether recent weaknesses will persist. “It’s too early to come to a conclusion. The company could have booked a portion of the booking,” said Rich Liu, CEO of Navan Travel.

Forward bookings for future travel dates in March increased by 16% compared to the same period last year, indicating continued confidence in business travel demand for the remainder of 2025.

Delta President Glen Hauenstein said on Wednesday that business travel trends were “volatile” and “company volume” [are] It is expected to be compared to last year.

European inbound has no weakness yet

Skift asked Travelperk, a Barcelona-based travel management platform, whether it saw any of its 7,000 customers reduce travel to the United States based on geopolitical and economic tensions with the United States and changes in the enforcement of U.S. border rules.

“At present, we have not seen any impact on travel to and from the United States or the same period last year.

“We are monitoring it closely and actually seeing 36% year-on-year growth in outbound travel in the United States,” Taunay Bucalo said.

Travelperk sees the returns Flight reservations for the past four weeks,,,,, And filter them into the same companies as the more and more of the year. It has a large sample size, given that it processed over $2.5 billion in business

travel bookings last year.

But as companies are still monitoring trends, Taunay Bucalo declined to talk about the impact of U.S. tariffs on future transatlantic business trip bookings.

Business Travel in the United States: Mixed Signal

Among Navan’s customers, most segments showed earnings in the first quarter. “The strongest growth came from corporate customers, with their flight bookings rising 34% year-on-year in March,” Liu said.

“The growth rate of the mid-sized market is 18%, while the growth rate of small business bookings is even higher, up 2%,” he said.

Navan’s customer portfolio has historically been skewed towards small companies, but has recently increased its share of large businesses, such as Salesforce and Netflix.

Real estate is the only major major region in the industry that showed a significant contraction, with bookings down 10% compared to March 2024.

Business travel in Canada to the United States

Skift also asked Navan to share data on trends in cross-border business travel in Canada.

According to Navan’s booking analysis of some of its customers, flight bookings from January to early April soared 25%. These travelers’ hotel bookings increased by 10%, and so did the same time frame.

Technology hubs and business centers are the main beneficiaries of the surge in corporate travel in Canada. Austin’s Canadian operations grew by 102%, while Seattle (+71%), Los Angeles (+58%) and Dallas (+53%) also recorded considerable growth.

But some softness may be masked in the data.

For Canadian travelers to the U.S., April figures remained positive on flights, but the growth trend was lower (+5%) and hotel bookings showed a slight decline (-4%).