For BTN's 33rd annual Corporate Travel Index, BCD Travel's Advito consultancy provided the average hotel and car rental costs its corporate clients paid for bookings that occurred between January and November 2016. Hotel rates for non-U.S. cities were converted from local currency to U.S. dollars based on the exchange rate on the day the invoice was paid. BTN collected hotel taxes and surcharges.

Under the direction of Lynn Minnaert, academic chair and clinical associate professor in the Jonathan M. Tisch Center for Hospitality and Tourism, part of the New York University School of Professional Studies, eight students called restaurants in October and November 2016 to gather meal prices.

For U.S. cities, breakfast is based on two eggs, meat, toast and coffee or orange juice; lunch on soup, a hamburger or chicken sandwich, a slice of pie and a soft drink; and dinner on soup, a filet steak, a glass of red wine, dessert and coffee. For cities with an annual GDP above $95 billion, Pedro Fajardo, Shanthini Jayachandran, Mariana-Lopez Velarde and Zhirong Zhang surveyed three chains, six independent restaurants that were identified via TripAdvisor and three hotel restaurants for breakfast. For each lunch and dinner, they called six chains and six independent restaurants. For smaller cities, they surveyed two independent restaurants and one hotel restaurant for breakfast and three chains and three independent restaurants for each lunch and dinner. Sample breakfast chains include Denny's, IHOP and Starbucks. Sample lunch chains include Chili's, Applebee's, Panera Bread and Olive Garden. Sample dinner chains include LongHorn Steakhouse and Olive Garden.

For non-U.S. cities, prices are based on a continental breakfast; a sandwich, salad and non-alcoholic drink for lunch; and salad, a non-alcoholic drink and fish, chicken or beef for dinner. No gratuity or tax is included. In non-U.S. cities with populations of more than 1.5 million, Xiao Cui, Kyootaek Han, Hidemi Nakagawa and Tianjian Wang surveyed 12 restaurants for each lunch and dinner. In smaller cities, they called six. In some cities, they focused on hotel restaurants in order to find the standard meal items. Prices are based on the Dec. 2, 2016, conversion rate from local currency to U.S. dollars.