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 28 July 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 modelling 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 the forecast expects fuel-related inflation to stay elevated for the rest of 2026.
The second is labour, and it will still be there next year. GBTA expects labour 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 labour 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 labour 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 Canadian factors move a ground transportation line on their own.
Currency. The headline figures are in US dollars. Domestic chauffeur spend is billed in Canadian dollars and isn't affected by the exchange rate. Cross-border spend is. Separate the two before you apply any global percentage.
Winter. A global average flattens out a seasonal cost that Canadian programs carry every year. Québec requires winter tires from 1 December to 15 March. British Columbia requires them on designated routes from 1 October (until 30 April on most routes, 31 March on some). Winter-rated tires across a commercial fleet, seasonal changeovers, slower routes and extra schedule buffer all land in Q1 and Q4. A budget spread evenly across twelve months will be off in both directions.
Where you travel. Canadian corporate travel runs through a handful of city pairs: Toronto–Montréal, Toronto–Calgary, Toronto–Vancouver and the Ottawa government corridor. Which cities you operate in, and how many providers you use in each, will move your costs far more than any global index.
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 labour, not fleet. GBTA's finding on rising labour 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 seasons. Weight Q1 and Q4 for winter, and Q4 again 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 Pearson transfers a year, those fifty prices don't need to be variable.
- Keep events separate. At $263 per attendee per day, rising to $267, event ground transport belongs 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 labour, and GBTA expects labour 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 labour. 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. Labour 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 labour. For a chauffeur line, GBTA's finding that labour costs are rising is the better indicator.
What's a realistic 2027 increase for a Canadian ground transportation budget?
There's no published Canadian chauffeur index, so you have to build it. Start from a labour-cost assumption instead of the car rental rate. Add the cost of winter operations in Q1 and Q4. Keep Canadian-dollar domestic spend separate from US-dollar cross-border spend. 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.
