July 4, 2026 | In the News

Fear is a Factor for Business Travelers, SAP Concur and Wakefield Research Data Confirms

Just a few years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic made many business travelers more cautious about their trips and caused travel managers at companies to reevaluate how they handle flights and other bookings.

Now, an increasingly fraught geopolitical climate and concerns about employee safety are creating a climate of anxiety among employees even as work travel itself is in an upswing, according to a recent article in Inc. that cites data from SAP Concur’s eighth-annual Global Business Travel Survey from a survey conducted by Wakefield Research.

While business travelers see the benefits of work trips – 93% believe they improve their mental and physical well-being, two-thirds (67%) are hesitant to travel due to concerns about safety, disruptions, or growing unpredictability caused by geopolitical events such as the war in Iran.

“SAP Concur’s annual survey has become an invaluable guide for companies to gain insights on what’s happening year-to-year in business travel and how those shifts are affecting travel budgets and attitudes among travelers, travel managers, and CFOs,” said Nathan Richter, Senior Partner at Wakefield Research.

“Nobody has the level of knowledge about changes in business travel that SAP Concur does and we’re proud of the granular insights we provide to reveal the reality of the challenges these travel managers face,” Richter said.

The SAP Concur data finds that there’s an increased expectation that companies will safeguard workers who are traveling for work: more than a quarter (27%) of those employees hold their employer most accountable for protecting their safety, up from 18% in 2020. Many are wary: only 58% are mostly or completely confident their organization could successfully extract them if trapped in a country due to a dangerous situation or emergency.

Other data from this year’s survey:

• Business travelers are feeling the effects of overcrowded or over-touristed areas with 43% experiencing higher costs and 38% struggling with transportation at those destinations.
• Overall, spending for trips is going up with 82% of CFOs expecting their travel budgets to increase this year.
• Travel managers are worried about sensitive company information getting out in the wild: 44% believe the biggest threat to business travel is information hacking.