Traveling businesses could travel many miles in 2025.
The pandemic is just a memory; face-to-face meetings, conventions, trade shows and meetings with vendors and suppliers appear to be seeing a lasting rebound.
During the last weeks of last year, the World Business Travel Association Corporate travel agencies reported that business travel met or exceeded expectations in 2024. More than two thirds of companies say they are optimistic for 2025. A majority of companies see stimulate their own travel budgets for in person meetings and conferences.
Three in five commercial travel buyers say their employees attend more meetings and conferences than had been seen last year. For companies sending these employees, cost control remains essential and was cited by 78% of the companies surveyed.
Company cards and reconciliation
Corporate cards and expense management systems are linked to help streamline cost control and reconciliation efforts. In an ad, Brex and Navan said in October that they to have has launched a new joint offering for businesses that streamlines travel payments into a single workflow. BrexPay for Navan provides an integrated business travel and payments solution by combining Navan’ Brex travel services and global corporate cards. And in May, as PYMNTS reports, American Express has partnered with travel and expense software provider Emburse.
Through these joint efforts, customers connect their card programs to Emburse Spend to issue virtual cards, a payment option that replaces a physical card number with a digital card number. The program is designed for American Express Business, Corporate and Corporate Purchasing Card customers. kissing a one-stop solution for virtual card issuance, card reconciliation and expense management.
Separately, Mastercard and NatWest has partnered to introduce a mobile virtual card payment tool for businesses in the UK. Approval2Buy is the first service in Europe to use Mastercard’s mobile virtual card application, according to the companies’ announcements. And just weeks ago, Global travel and expense management company Mesh Payments said it was operating with SoFi Bank as a sponsor bank and with Galileo Financial Technologies to integrate Mesh’s spending and card infrastructure with Galileo’s payment processing platform.
Commercial travel companies
Some of the even trends changing business travel — the shift to more robust digital payments back-end processes, virtual cards – are also evident for commercial travel agencies serving corporate clients.
As PYMNTS Intelligence found, in its Growth Corporates Working Capital Index, commissioned by Visa, to use working capital solutions, including virtual cards, is expected to grow by 25% for commercial travel agencies. Business expansion is one of the main reasons why businesses adopt working capital. Data shows that 87% of commercial travel companies are likely to use at least one corporate travel solution in the current year – and 73% of companies surveyed in this sector said they would to use these solutions strategically.
