Untangling fact and fiction around business travel

TOGETHER WITH

Travel spend by numbers: The results of our survey in partnership with Engine are in, and it’s time to bust the misconception you may have around the utility of travel platforms.

Travel spend by numbers: The results of our survey in partnership with Engine are in, and it’s time to bust the misconception you may have around the utility of travel platforms.

The phrase “business travel” is a bit of an auditory Rorschach test. It can elicit any number of reactions depending on who hears it: excitement, fear, nausea, and the all-encompassing dread of tracking travel costs.

According to the Global Business Travel Association, costs are only going up. Their data shows the average business trip costs $1,128 per person, up from $834 in 2024. That’s a whopping 35% increase, due in no small part to rising inflation and gas prices that make travel even more costly for businesses. That adds up when the average employee count for SMBs (small- and medium-sized businesses) generally spans from 1 to 499 employees. This comes at a time when traveling for work is even more important for growing your business. For every $1 spent on work travel, companies see $12 in return, according to Forrester.

You don’t have to go it alone, though. The right travel platform helps keep costs grounded while your coworkers are up in the air. The problem is, many businesses hold onto a few outdated misconceptions around these tools that keep them from being included as part of the journey. That leaves travelers and administrators alike in a tough spot of doing everything manually, which comes with some hidden costs.

We partnered with Engine, a modern travel and spend platform, to dig into the data and dispel some of these notions. That’s why we embarked on a joint survey with Engine.

The results are in

We surveyed 439 business travelers + business travel admins to better understand what their challenges are, where business travel can be improved, and how much time/energy is wasted on dealing with business travel logistics.

This was distributed in June 2026 primarily to US-based Morning Brew readers who specifically work in business travel or frequently travel for business.

Nearly 60% of those surveyed work at small- (fewer than 100 employees) or medium-size (100–499 employees) businesses. Additionally, 76.8% of respondents travel for business, and 78% of those who travel do so at least once per quarter.

Despite this volume, SMBs are largely going it alone. 67% of respondents say employees book travel however they choose, compared to 32% of respondents at large/enterprise-level companies. That leaves a lot of SMB employees without the proper tools for savvy business travel bookings.

Only 21.5% of SMBs surveyed use a dedicated travel management platform, compared to 72.2% of large/enterprise companies. That’s a 50+ percentage-point gap. The most common reason why they don’t have a dedicated travel management platform is that their company just doesn’t seem big enough to need one (38% overall, 48% among SMBs).

Misconception #1: Size matters.

62.8% of SMB admins surveyed cite unclear ROI as a top barrier to adopting a travel platform, and 46.8% flag fear of being locked into long-term contracts. This makes sense. For SMBs, every dollar matters, which requires you to stay mindful about the bottom line.

What’s nice is that you don’t have to worry about long-term contracts or pricing with Engine. Their platform is free to use, with no contracts, minimums, annual fees, or setup costs. In fact, customers saved over $318m last year.

Misconception #2: You don’t lose anything by not having a travel management platform.

Wrong again. SMB admins are significantly more likely to flag overspending on travel than large/enterprise companies (31.9% vs. 18.8%), which has a significant impact on the bottom line. So if money’s on your mind, here’s a free solution to a costly problem that large- and enterprise-size businesses are already taking advantage of.

Ready for takeoff?

Your bag is packed, your tray table is locked and in its upright position, and you’re ready to focus on your upcoming conference/meeting/onsite, right? Well, just like your overhead bin, your head is probably stuffed to the brim with worry about keeping track of every expense that you’ll need reimbursed.

Misconception #3: You’ll get reimbursed… eventually.

The plane tickets, the hotel, the rental car, dinners, drinks, and large, triangular Swiss chocolate bars all add up, and all need to be accounted for. 30% of travelers have paid for business expenses out of pocket (35.5% among SMB travelers), 30.7% have waited too long to be reimbursed, and 7.6% have received no reimbursement at all.

In fact, 26% of business travelers surveyed paid for a business expense while traveling and did not get it completely reimbursed. Another 48% of travelers surveyed spend over $1,000 of their own money annually on business travel that eventually gets reimbursed—and about a quarter report that $250–$999 of their own money never gets reimbursed in a typical year.

The flight attendants running out of peanuts will dampen your mood, but eating the cost of business travel can hurt morale and leave travelers feeling hungry for a company that will actually get them their money.

It’s not just travelers, either. Admins feel this too. 33.1% of travel managers surveyed cite out-of-pocket reimbursement as a top headache, rising to 38.3% among SMB admins specifically.

That’s why Engine is designed to centralize everything. They keep all your bookings in a single invoice—whether you have five employees or 5,000. On top of that, your business gets travel approvals, real-time spend visibility, and accounting integrations. Enterprise-grade control for your finance team, without enterprise complexity.

Come in, air traffic control

Ground control to major bummer: Travel-related admin tasks take forever. Repeat. This stuff takes forever to do manually.

Travelers aren’t the only ones facing turbulence when it comes to travel management. The admins, who may never ever get to see scenic Columbus, Ohio, from an economy window seat, get saddled with hours of extra work.

Misconception #4: Admin work can’t take that long to do, right?

Our survey found that the average respondent spends 7.8 hours per month on travel-related admin tasks. That’s about 94 hours, or 12 full working days, per year. SMBs average 9 hours per month (14 working days annually), and that figure climbs to 10 hours for admins.

75% of admins surveyed say processing and reconciling expenses after travel requires moderate-to-significant effort—the highest of any task measured. Faster expense processing is a top-desired feature for 39% of travelers and 31.9% of admins.

With both sides of the travel coin crying out for relief, we’d be remiss in not sharing that SMBs with a dedicated travel platform like Engine spend 40% less time on travel admin than SMBs without one. You can book in 2.5 minutes with Engine and save 50 hours on every group trip.

Misconception #5: Our company doesn’t need a travel platform.

Need is a strong word. We’ll concede that point. But looking at the data from our joint survey, it becomes apparent what travelers and administrators want. They want to protect the bottom line, stop paying out of pocket with uncertain reimbursement processes, and avoid hours upon hours of thankless administrative work.

Engine is the platform meeting those wants for 38,000 businesses and groups and 1 million travelers. Customers can get access to a free-to-use, no-contract tool; control their travel and spend programs in one place; and earn up to 10% back with our corporate card: Engine X. Give your company a fighting chance when you start booking with Engine.