Companies will spend $1.25 Trillion on business travel this year

With the dwindling winds of the global financial crisis no longer blowing companies off course, budgetary allocations for business travel have returned to the company ledger in a major way. The Economist reports that The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) says that companies around the world will spend $1.25 Trillion on business travel this year.

63% of American firms increased their business travel spend in 2015, bringing the global total way, way up from previous years. But while the total market has risen dramatically, the expenditures are taking different forms than in decades past. The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) reports that while employers are saying yes to more travel, they are pinching pennies when it comes to each individual trip.

Centralized booking systems are now the norm in the corporate world, and on-the-road expenses often must meet rigorous qualifications to be fully reimbursed. Upgrades to hotel rooms and even the nicer cabin classes of flights have been some of the first perks to be pulled in this brave new world.

But experts say that these same penny-pinching businesses are leaving a potential goldmine of savings unexplored in the sharing economy. That ACTE study found that more than 50% of companies do not allow employees to secure lodging on sites like Airbnb, even though it could provide dramatic benefits for the bottom line. The most commonly cited reasons? Safety and standards.

Corporate travel booking agents know what they are getting when they reserve a room in, say, a Marriott or Hilton, but have little predictable control over the manner in which an Airbnb host tidies a room or prepares it for guests. Airbnb, surely seeing the writing on the wall, has made major inroads into capturing those corporate accounts this year.

What do all of these restrictions and perk-prunings mean for the actual employees themselves? Well, business travel is getting harder. Airport security takes longer, and while Wi-Fi onboard flights sounds like a technological marvel, business travelers are increasingly expected to put that juice to use and work during their flights. But even so, more than 50 percent of business travelers are reportedly happy with all of this traveling, and one-third of them would like to spend even more time on the road next year.