Survey: Road Warriors Lead Corp. Travel Growth Expectations

After a significant increase in trips last year, corporate road warriors—as well as business travelers as a whole—largely are maintaining or increasing their volume of business travel this year, according to a study conducted by Internova Analytics and Consulting.

The 2024 Internova Index: North American Business Traveler Insights is a new segment of its annual research on North American travel, according to the travel services company, which includes Altour. The research is based on analysis of millions of travel bookings in the U.S. and Canada as well as a survey of about 3,000 travelers, and Internova segmented business travel data by executives, road warriors and occasional business travelers.

Among corporate travelers in the survey and research, 30 percent said they expect to travel more this year than last year, and 85 percent said they will travel at least same amount, according to Internova. Road warriors were slightly more likely to say they were traveling more this year than executives and occasional business travelers, and they also were the least likely to say they would travel less this year. Occasional business travelers, meanwhile, were the most likely to say they will travel less this year, according to the survey.

Road warriors had the largest growth in number of trips last year compared with 2022, according to the survey, up 26 percent, according to Internova. Executives' average number of trips last year was up 9 percent year over year, with international trips up 30 percent and domestic trips flat. For occasional travelers, however, average trips were down 10 percent year over year in 2023, the survey showed.