The short answer
The GBTA and ALTOUR 2027 Global Business Travel Forecast expects business travel prices to keep rising in 2027, just more slowly. Airfare goes up 1.5%, hotel rates go up 1.8%, and car rental falls 0.9% to $46.10 a day. Be careful with that car rental figure if you're budgeting for chauffeurs. It measures a different product.
If you're building a 2027 travel budget this fall, someone in the room will quote the GBTA forecast. That's fair. It's the most credible public data available and it came out on July 28, 2026, so it's current. The trouble is that one of its numbers is very easy to apply to the wrong line.
What the forecast says
The 2027 Global Business Travel Forecast from the Global Business Travel Association and ALTOUR uses econometric modeling by the Avrio Institute, and ALTOUR says it draws on 18 months of pricing data. GBTA's summary is "relief, not a reset." Prices keep going up, just not as fast.
Air is still the volatile category. The global average airfare is forecast at $756 for 2026, up 4.7% on 2025. Economy rises 8.7% to $536. Premium cabins (premium economy, business and first) rise 9.5% to $4,488. Growth slows sharply in 2027: 1.5% overall, 1.1% for economy and 2.2% for premium. North America and EMEA see some of the biggest 2026 increases, which GBTA puts down to tight capacity, higher operating costs and late aircraft deliveries.
Hotels are steadier. Average daily rate rises 3.7% in 2026 to $168, then 1.8% in 2027 to $171, held down by a record construction pipeline. North America comes in at 3.2% for 2026, under the global average and well below Latin America's 9.5%.
Ground transportation barely moves. GBTA treats car rental as the largest part of managed ground transportation. Rental rates fell in 2025. GBTA forecasts them up 3.6% in 2026 to $46.50 a day, then down 0.9% in 2027 to $46.10.
Meetings and events keep climbing. Cost per attendee per day rises 3.0% to $263 in 2026 and 1.5% to $267 in 2027. Food, beverage and production drive most of that, not room rates.
Why 2026 looked the way it did
GBTA gives two causes. The first was a one-off: the 2026 closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which it calls the largest oil supply disruption on record. Crude and jet fuel spiked and airline costs rose everywhere. Fuel has come off its peak, but ALTOUR expects fuel-related inflation to stay elevated for the rest of 2026.
The second is labor, and it will still be there next year. GBTA expects labor costs to keep rising across airlines, hotels, ground transportation and events, driven by multi-year agreements, wage inflation and ongoing staff shortages. A fuel shock reverses. A wage settlement doesn't. In the release, ALTOUR's Michael Boult said the operating environment "is not returning to what it was before."
Car rental is not a chauffeur benchmark
This is where budget conversations usually go wrong.
GBTA's ground transportation number ($46.50 a day in 2026, $46.10 in 2027) is a car rental daily rate, and GBTA says so directly. Most executive programs don't buy car rental for the people they send by car. Rental and chauffeur service have different costs, different demand and different pressures.
A rental rate is a fleet utilization number. It moves with vehicle supply, resale values and how well a rental company keeps its cars earning. GBTA says fleet availability and vehicle supply are stabilizing, which is why rental rates flatten and then dip.
A chauffeur rate is a labor number. The vehicle is a real cost, but most of what you pay for is a trained, licensed, insured professional's time, plus the dispatch and monitoring behind them. It follows wages, insurance and compliance far more closely than it follows vehicle supply.
So in 2027 the two are likely to move in opposite directions. The same report that forecasts rental rates falling 0.9% also flags rising labor costs across ground transportation. If your chauffeur line is flat or down because "GBTA says ground transport is getting cheaper," you've read the right report and taken the wrong number from it.
GBTA's own advice points the same way. It tells buyers to look at costs by region, market and category instead of relying on global averages. That applies inside the ground transportation category too.
Three things the global numbers leave out
The forecast is global. Three local factors move a US ground transportation line on their own.
Where you travel. The headline figures are already in US dollars, but they are global averages, and chauffeur rates are set metro by metro, by local labor markets, insurance and demand. A program that travels to New York, Chicago and Los Angeles has a different cost base in each. For a program based in Atlanta, for example, most ground spend sits on a few repeat patterns: transfers to and from Hartsfield-Jackson, meeting days between Downtown, Midtown, Buckhead and Perimeter Center, and the occasional city-to-city trip. Your own patterns, city by city, and how many providers you use for them, will move your costs far more than any global index.
The event calendar. A global average flattens out the dates that drive demand. In every major US city, large conventions, trade shows and big games concentrate demand for premium vehicles into specific weeks; in Atlanta, that means the Georgia World Congress Center and the big games and concerts downtown. A program that books those dates late pays in availability, if not in rate, and a budget spread evenly across twelve months will miss them.
Weather. Snow in the Northeast and Midwest, hurricanes on the Gulf Coast and in Florida, and in Atlanta the summer thunderstorms that hold flights at ATL and the rare ice event that stops the roads, don't change a fixed, flight-tracked airport rate, but they do add waiting on hourly bookings, rebooked trips and schedule buffer. A small contingency line covers them better than an assumption that every trip runs to plan.
Building the line
This method holds up when finance starts asking questions.
- Split the category. Chauffeur and black car, car rental, taxi and rideshare reimbursement, and event shuttles all behave differently. One growth rate across all four will be wrong for at least three of them.
- Budget the full cost per trip, not the rate. Add gratuity, wait time, tolls, airport fees, cancellation charges and the finance time spent reconciling invoices. Then add what a failed trip costs: a missed flight, a late arrival at a client meeting. Programs that only watch the rate often switch to a cheaper provider and end up spending more.
- Base the chauffeur line on labor, not fleet. GBTA's finding on rising labor costs is a better guide here than its car rental rate. Ask your current providers what rate movement they expect for 2027, and on what basis.
- Model the calendar. Weight the months and event dates when your travel actually peaks, and Q4 for conference season and year-end travel.
- Fix what you can. Fixed rates agreed in advance on routes you use often take volatility out of the budget. If you run fifty transfers a year to and from the same airport, Hartsfield-Jackson or any other, those fifty prices don't need to be variable.
- Keep events separate. GBTA forecasts meetings on their own ($263 per attendee per day in 2026, rising to $267 in 2027), and event ground transport belongs with them in the meetings budget. It behaves differently and different people approve it.
Three lines for the budget meeting
- Business travel prices keep rising in 2027, but more slowly. GBTA and ALTOUR forecast airfare growth of 1.5% and hotel rate growth of 1.8%, and prices are unlikely to return to 2025 levels.
- Don't apply the falling car rental benchmark to chauffeur and black car spend. That category runs on labor, and GBTA expects labor costs across ground transportation to keep rising.
- Consolidating suppliers and fixing rates are the levers you control. Neither depends on the forecast being right.
The last point is the one to hold on to. Forecasts get revised every year. A program that holds up whichever way costs move is in better shape than one built on getting the number right.
Frequently asked questions
What is driving business travel costs in 2026 and 2027?
According to GBTA, energy and labor. The 2026 closure of the Strait of Hormuz caused the largest oil supply disruption on record and pushed up jet fuel and airline operating costs. Labor costs keep rising across airlines, hotels, ground transportation and events through multi-year agreements, wage inflation and staff shortages.
Can I use GBTA's ground transportation forecast for a chauffeur budget?
Not directly. GBTA's ground transportation figure is anchored on car rental, the largest part of that category. Rental prices follow fleet utilization and vehicle supply. Chauffeur prices follow labor. For a chauffeur line, GBTA's finding that labor costs are rising is the better indicator.
What's a realistic 2027 increase for a US ground transportation budget?
The GBTA forecast doesn't price chauffeur service directly, so you have to build it. Start from a labor-cost assumption instead of the car rental rate. Budget the full cost per trip, including gratuity, waiting and applicable taxes and fees, and weight the months and event dates when your travel peaks. Then ask your providers what rate movement they expect and why.
What will meetings and events cost per attendee in 2027?
GBTA forecasts $263 per attendee per day in 2026, rising 1.5% to $267 in 2027. Most of the increase comes from food, beverage and production costs, not from group room rates.
