Amex GBT: Q2 Business Travel Price Hikes Accelerate

Overall business travel cost increases accelerated in the second quarter, with hotel rates in major cities for business travel expected to rise further in 2026, according to American Express Global Business Travel's Business Travel Pulse report, published on Tuesday.

The Pulse's business travel price index—based on data from Amex GBT's data lake combined with analysis by its consulting team—shows that business travel prices were up 2.6 percent year over year in the second quarter, up from a 0.6 percent year-over-year increase in the first quarter. The index score gives airfares a weight of 65 percent, hotel rates a weight of 25 percent and the remaining 10 percent split evenly between rail and car rental prices.

The report also highlighted the cities that are projected to see the largest increases in hotel prices in 2026, using its data along with inflation and GDP forecasts from the International Monetary Fund and modeled with open-source software Prophet. In North America, Amex GBT projects the largest increases will be in Toronto (5.8 percent) and New York (4 percent). In Europe, Amex GBT projects hotel prices will increase 4.8 percent year over year in Madrid, 4.2 percent year over year in London, 3.7 percent year over year in Berlin and 2.4 percent year over year in Paris.

Other global cities in the report projected to have hotel cost increases above 4 percent year over year include Buenos Aires (5.6 percent), Rio de Janeiro (5 percent), Cape Town (4.7 percent) and Bengaluru (6.4 percent).