Business travel shows no sign of declining. The GBTA’s latest Business Travel Index Outlook revealed that global spending on work-related travel was set to reach $1.57tn in 2025, and might exceed $2tn in 2029. In contrast to these ambitious projections, the latest SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey reveals that over two in three business travellers (72%) are hesitant to take business trips this year.
Traveller hesitance reflects broader instability across the global travel environment. Safety concerns around travelling to areas affected by geopolitical conflict or tension were the most cited reason (39%). The likelihood of travel disruptions, such as flight delays or cancellations due to technical issues, weather, or staff shortages, ranked second (30%). Concern over visas, immigration status, and digital IDs came in at 18%.
Safety being the leading source of apprehension, is cause for concern. To re-engage employees and revitalise travel programmes in times of turmoil, leaders must meet travellers’ expectations for duty of care.
Let’s dissect how key personas feel about business travel safety, where responsibility lies, and the practical steps leaders can take to protect workers when they hit the tarmac.
Safety is a top concern across the company
Leadership is feeling the pressure. Almost half of corporate travel managers (44%) and half of chief financial officers (50%) agree that geopolitical conflicts could negatively impact business travel over the next 12 months.
In uncertain times, employees look to leaders for security. Unfortunately, the majority (77%) of business travellers are not completely confident in their organisation’s ability to extract them from a country during a dangerous scenario.
That’s bad news for your travel programme. Before they book to visit a prospect or network at a conference halfway around the world, employees need to trust that the organisation sending them away can also bring them back. Without it, they may push back against business travel.
There’s a misalignment in duty of care
Workers hold differing views on who’s responsible for employee safety while travelling for work. More than one in three (34%) business travellers hold themselves most accountable, while 30% think their employer is in charge of keeping them safe – a notable difference from 18% when a similar question was asked in 2020.
Generational trends suggest younger workers are less likely to feel personally accountable. Only 33% of Gen Z and 35% of Millennials view themselves as most responsible for care, compared to nearly half (47%) of Boomers and 43% of Gen X. As younger people enter the workforce, employers can expect travellers to increasingly place the onus on the organisation.
A misaligned understanding of ownership extends right up to the C-suite. Chief financial officers are divided over corporate responsibility: 35% believe duty of care falls entirely on the organisation, while 59% say it’s primarily on the employee. Alarmingly, 6% claim the organisation holds no responsibility at all.
The gap in alignment is a clear sign that improvement is still needed. While employees can take steps to protect themselves, organisations have an undeniable duty to ensure their safety.
How to keep business travellers safe
These findings demonstrate that, in some instances, current safety measures are falling short.
Travel managers, as the individuals most closely involved in provisioning travel, are all too aware of the problem. The majority (86%) say they’re concerned the organisation isn’t doing enough to protect employee safety while travelling for work.
The lack of support may deplete employee trust, expose the business to legal implications, and put travellers at risk. Addressing it requires technology-driven solutions and clear business travel policies.
Consider these corporate travel safety measures to protect your people:
1. Offer opt-in location tracking:
Location tracking helps organisations monitor risks in real time and instantly coordinate support efforts for employees. But it’s also at the centre of a contentious privacy debate.
The survey results show that while over a tenth of business travellers (13%) aren’t comfortable being tracked, most (87%) are at least somewhat comfortable with their organisation monitoring their location to help protect their safety.
Travel managers respect that some employees might not be comfortable with this practice. While 43% believe tracking is critical for safety, 52% say employees should have the option to opt out if preferred.
Businesses need to balance trust and tech. A successful location-tracking strategy hinges on employee buy-in, which requires clear communication and total transparency about how data is collected.
2. Use AI to monitor and action risk in real time:
Businesses can use artificial intelligence to help safeguard travellers. For instance, four in 10 travel managers (45%) expect AI tools to help them monitor global risks that could threaten traveller safety. That intelligence enables faster action.
Rather than broadcasting generic, company-wide warnings that are easy to ignore, AI-powered solutions enable travel managers to cross-reference global threat data with individual itineraries. Organisations can match real-time flight schedules, hotel bookings, and rail reservations to localised events, and send proximity-based alerts if a traveller is near a hazard, such as severe weather or civil unrest.
By providing travellers with hyper-personalised, real-time protection, businesses can fulfil duty of care obligations and deliver a safer, more resilient travel programme.
Delivering on duty of care in 2026
Employees are understandably reluctant to risk their safety for business travel. But better protections mean they won’t have to. Leaders have a responsibility to keep employees safe – which requires them to invest time, energy, and resource into technologies that reduce risk and build trust among the workforce.
By proving you can keep your people safe, you can unlock a travel programme that delivers value without compromise – and that gets employees excited about the opportunity to get on the road once more.
