Travel & Expense Trends: What to Expect in 2025

AI paved the way for breakthroughs in travel and expense (T&E) in 2024. As SAP Concur executives predicted, emerging AI use cases like predictive analytics for spend management are starting to simplify travel management and expense reporting, while power shifts in the travel industry led to travel management company (TMC) consolidation this year. We expect to see these trends continue—if not accelerate—into 2025.  

Read on for SAP Concur executives’ predictions for the year ahead.  

Slowing Inflation Will Increase Travel Opportunity 

“As leaders strive to position their company for growth in 2025, they will still attempt to maintain employee spending at 2024 levels. Inflation drove higher spending beginning in 2023, resulting in fewer trips in 2024. As inflation slows, many leaders are likely to expect that their T&E budget—even if flat year over year—will go further in 2025.  

“Meanwhile, finance teams and travel managers will adjust their T&E policies to account for AI as more tasks and processes become automated. Will managers need to approve every expense report? Will they need to review them at all? How can policies and rules be modified so that travelers spend as little time in T&E tools as possible? These are some of the questions they will start to ask in 2025. 

“Investments in technology innovation and security infrastructure will be top priorities. The risks associated with security and privacy incidents will only continue to grow, which means companies are looking for technologies that deliver greater value to customers with lower risk. It is really a balancing act to move fast without disregarding the very important aspects of security and privacy when architecting solutions—internally and for customers.”

– Christopher Juneau, SVP, Head of SAP Concur Product Marketing, ISBN Marketing & Solutions 

Early Caution Will Bolster Greater Trust in Generative AI for Travel 

“2025 will be the year of healthy skepticism of generative AI for travel. The 2024 SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey found that 95% of business travelers would consider using AI-powered automation to support their tasks. But given how rapidly things have accelerated with increasing AI adoption across business functions and massive volumes of users on tools like ChatGPT, travelers will still hesitate to let go of full control, and instead will approach AI tools through a cautiously experimental lens. AI will be seen as a ‘handy assistant’ used to source recommendations, pinpoint trends, and identify expense anomalies, but users will not yet be comfortable with AI booking travel or submitting an expense report for them.  

“However, solution providers should not be deterred. This is an opportunity to build trust and strengthen AI offerings, which will ultimately put everyone in a good spot when users—and their employers—are ready to make that leap. 

“Traveler expectations for user experience will continue to increase, with reduced tolerance for basic or ‘flat’ sites. This is true for all digital user experiences, but especially in travel, whether it’s for business or leisure. We’ll see growing demand for continuous updates and problem-solving assistance from travel providers during disruptions like extreme weather events, which are increasingly influencing travel decisions and putting duty of care in the spotlight. Travelers want real-time information and solutions to accommodate weather-related changes.” 

– Jen Moyse, VP, Head of User Experience and User Assistance, SAP Concur

Finance Leaders Will Collaborate Across the C-Suite to Implement Emerging Technology 

“Finance will play an increasingly important role in steering the business, driving innovation, and retaining customers—and this will ramp up in 2025. The latest SAP Concur CFO Insights report suggests that CFOs are already being asked to get closer to senior executives and help drive fast, fact-based decision-making, using technology to both analyze and predict trends. Finance offers the skills and the holistic view of the business to be the ideal partner to IT and engineering, facilitating new market exploration, solution creation, cross-functional process automation and standardization, and business model transformation.  

“With companies rolling out return-to-office policies, the partnership among finance, IT, and security needs to continue to strengthen so the return to the office and increases in travel don’t add risk to the overall company posture. Security and privacy incidents pose significant risks to companies, so investments that leverage technology capabilities, help to drive cash (e.g., auto pay), and improve security posture will most likely rank higher in prioritization. 

“Another effect of hybrid work is that business travel will likely increase and T&E budgets will correspondingly grow. Still, companies will most likely try to do that without compromising on compliance and sustainability. That is where finance again plays a critical role in having the best possible supplier landscape to guide investments in technology that prioritize compliance and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. 

“In 2025, financial decision-makers will go all-in on AI—but they’ll have to up-level their knowledge of how AI can be used within their financial processes so they can make informed decisions on where to place their investment bets. They will likely demand a thorough assessment of the ROI from their AI investments to evaluate both tangible and intangible savings, such as increased efficiency, positive user experiences, and enhanced compliance.”  

– Victor Domingos, CFO, SAP Concur 

TMC Consolidation to Continue, While Airlines and Travelers Reap the Benefits of NDC 

“TMC consolidation that we predicted in 2024 will continue into 2025. This will lead to tenuous negotiations between the now larger, merged TMCs, as they will expect to have more leverage. TMCs will need a greater number of transactions over which to spread their costs, and their need for technological investment will continue to grow—especially as AI use cases, like leveraging large language models (LLMs) to read fare rules and travel policies or answer basic customer emails, start to deliver actual returns.  

“Although content fragmentation concern has not gone away, the frenzy will calm down in 2025. By the end of next year, airlines will experience the incremental benefits of New Distribution Capability (NDC), including personalization, bundling, continuous pricing, and savings. In addition, more companies will realize the benefits of a fully integrated travel, expense, and ERP solution. True integration drives efficiencies for travelers, administrators, legal teams, technology teams, and finance and accounting teams.  

“The hybrid work trend will continue into 2025. One result we may see, with more employees returning to offices and more companies looking to hire employees within commuting distance, is a decrease in the number of blended work/leisure trips. However, with more and more millennials making up not just corporate travelers, but also serving in decision-making roles, I expect that companies that built a culture around employee travel flexibility will continue to offer those benefits.” 

– Charlie Sultan, President, Concur Travel 

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There is one common thread running through these developments that SAP Concur leaders expect to bolster growth and fast track businesses in 2025: interconnectivity. Whether enabling teamwork across the C-suite or enhancing personalization and cost savings thanks to airline adoption of NDC, interconnectivity will drive T&E in 2025.