BTN's 2022 Corporate Travel Index reflects the per diem costs of business travel in 200 cities worldwide. Those costs are on the rise—and, strangely, that is good news if corporate travel buyers choose to look at the uplift as a sign of renewed travel industry health since it was eviscerated by two years and multiple waves of the Covid-19 pandemic. Afterall, strong partners make stronger travel programs. But there's more to the cost picture in 2022. Travel costs largely are projected to rise throughout the year, thanks to environmental, economic, social and geopolitical drivers that are outside corporate travel's more typical buyer-supplier dynamics.

BTN's Corporate Travel Index tracks cost changes quarterly via our free online Corporate Travel Index Calculator. For region-by-region analysis and insights, read on…

Methodology

Hotel Rates: Advito, Emburse and Prime Numbers provide aggregated, anonymized, quarterly U.S. rates booked by corporate clients across five hotel tiers. Advito, HRS and Prime Numbers provide parallel data for non-U.S. cities. BTN provides taxes and fees for U.S. cities on an annual basis.

Car Rental Rates: Advito, Emburse and Prime Numbers provide aggregated, anonymized, quarterly U.S. car rental rates booked by corporate clients across three car rental tiers. Advito provides combined local tax and fee data. BTN calculates the index rates and updates car rental data from the same sources quarterly.

Meal Prices: With the support of Lynn Minnaert, academic chair and clinical associate professor in the New York University School of Professional Studies’ Jonathan M. Tisch Center of Hospitality, BTN partners with NYU students annually to compile meal data for the Corporate Travel Index. Students called restaurants in December and January to gather meal prices sans taxes and gratuities. BTN updates meal data annually.

U.S. Meal Data: For breakfast in each city that has an annual GDP above $95 billion, students surveyed three chains, six independent restaurants identified via TripAdvisor and three hotel restaurants; for each lunch and dinner, they called six chain and six independent restaurants. For each smaller city, students surveyed two independent restaurants and one hotel restaurant for breakfast and three chain and three independent restaurants for each lunch and dinner. U.S. breakfast is based on an egg entree (omelet, benedict, etc.) with fruit and coffee or juice. Sample breakfast chains include Denny's, IHOP and Starbucks. Lunch is an entree-style salad or sandwich, pizza, burrito or wrap with fruit; fries or chips; and nonalcoholic beverage. Dinner is a steak, pasta or raw or cooked fish entree; small salad; cheese tray or dessert; and glass of wine. Sample lunch chains include Chili's, Panera and Bonefish Grill. Sample dinner chains include Fogo de Chao, The Cheesecake Factory & The Capital Grille.

Non-U.S.Meal Data: Breakfast is based on continental breakfast. For lunch and dinner in each city that has a population of 1.5 million or more, students surveyed 12 restaurants; in each smaller city, they called six. The students converted prices from local currency to U.S. dollars on Dec. 1. Lunch is based on a sandwich, salad and nonalcoholic drink. Dinner is based on a fish, chicken or beef entree; salad; nonalcoholic drink; and dessert or cheese tray.

Taxi Rates: BTN compiled taxi rate data, primarily using Rome2Rio and WelcomPickUps. BTN updates taxi data annually.

Risk Scores: GeoSure synthesizes near real-time traveler safety data using a proprietary combination of Big Data predictive analytics, artificial intelligence/natural language processing and crowdsourced input. GeoSafeScores powered by GeoSure incorporate structured and unstructured data from sources like the United Nations, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, World Health Organization, Interpol, The World Bank, FBI and the U.S. State Department, as well as macro sources like inflation trends, education, income levels, political stability, trending health and disease data, neighborhood-level police presences, healthcare facility proliferation and infrastructure characteristics. BTN updates risk data quarterly.