International flight volumes stay high in Q1 after rapid growth last quarter; multi-stop trips increase

Emburse, the global leader in spend optimization, announced today the results of its Q1 2023 SpendSmart Travel Trends report. This quarterly report tracks how much organizations spend on travel, as well as trends for booking volume and trip length, and compares it to the previous year and the previous quarter.

In Q1 2023, business travel measures changed as follows:

• Volume of domestic flights booked: 52% up from Q1 2022 and 29% up from Q4 2022
• Amount spent on domestic flights: 85% up from Q1 2022 and 42% up from Q4 2022
• Volume of international flights booked: 178% up from Q1 2022 and 1% up from Q4 2022
• Amount spent on international flights: 285% up from Q1 2022 and 21% up from Q4 2022
• Volume of car rentals booked: 53% up from Q1 2022 and 22% up from Q4 2022
• Amount spent on car rentals: 60% up from Q1 2022 and 21% up from Q4 2022
• Volume of hotel reservations booked: 49% up from Q1 2022 and 5% up from Q4 2022
• Amount spent on hotel reservations: 59% up from Q1 2022 and 11% up from Q4 2022

Despite news that organizations are tightening their belts, the Q1 2023 SpendSmart Travel Trends report shows that these macroeconomic concerns have not dampened the momentum of the business travel industry. The number of domestic and international flights, hotel and car rentals, and spend across the board all increased as industry events like CES returned in full and executives sought a sense of normalcy in the new year. While international flight volume only grew by 1% against last quarter, that follows a 998% annual increase in the quarter prior, indicating that organizations are continuing to spend on international travel.

“Finance leaders may be surprised to see continued growth for business travel in the first quarter of this year given market conditions and budget cuts,” said Eric Friedrichsen, CEO of Emburse. “Our data show that employees are instead finding ways to travel more efficiently. For example, length of stay in hotels saw a dip while car rental durations increased over the previous quarter as employees are taking more multi-stop trips to maximize their travel time.”

Emburse plans to continue monitoring these figures and updating them quarterly. The next SpendSmart Travel Trends report will examine Q2 2023 and will be available in July.

About Emburse

Emburse is the global leader in spend optimization. Our expense, travel management, purchasing and accounts payable, and payments solutions are trusted by more than 12 million business professionals, including CFOs, finance teams, and travelers. More than 18,000 organizations in 120 countries, including FORTUNE 100 corporations, high-growth startups, public sector agencies, and nonprofits, count on our intelligent automation, sophisticated analytics, and unmatched spend control to streamline processes, increase spend visibility, enhance compliance, and deliver positive financial outcomes.

Our mission is to humanize work by eliminating manual, time-consuming tasks, so our customers and their teams can focus on what matters most in their personal and professional lives.

For more information on Emburse, visit emburse.com, or follow our social channels at @Emburse.

Methodology

The data in the Emburse Business Travel Index represents over 140,000 individual transactions made by travel management companies using Emburse’s expense management platform for business travel expenses. It reflects the months of January, February, and March collectively (Q1) for the years 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.

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