Corporate travel’s comeback is showing up strong across quarterly earnings. But the bottom-line wins aren’t showing up in the travel and entertainment sector’s traditional heavyweight categories.
While airlines continue to contend with fuel costs, operating expenses and pricing pressures, hotels and conference venues are benefiting from demand for business meetings, group events and corporate gatherings.
Corporate travel is no longer just a question of how frequently employees return to airports.
Third-quarter results from Hilton, Marriott and Hyatt reveal accelerating demand for corporate gatherings, business meetings and work-related hotel stays. Group bookings are outperforming several other lodging segments, while business travel associated with technology investment, manufacturing and infrastructure development is creating additional demand.
For corporate finance leaders preparing 2027 travel and expense budgets, the numbers point to a market in which the purpose of a trip may matter more than the volume of trips.
Read more: The Corporate Road Warrior Is Back With a Bigger Mission
Hotel Earnings Reveal a Shift in Corporate Travel Spending
Hilton offered one of the clearest indications of the trend in its Oct. 27 earnings report last Tuesday. The hotel operator reported an 8.3% year-over-year increase in third-quarter revenue per available room (RevPAR) from individual business travelers. Group RevPAR rose 8.2%, compared with just 1.6% growth in leisure transient RevPAR.
More revealing was CEO Christopher Nassetta’s outlook for 2027. He projected overall RevPAR growth of 3% to 4%, with business transient travel expected to outperform group bookings, followed by leisure.
The hierarchy suggests that corporate demand could become the industry’s principal growth engine next year, rather than simply another contributor to the broader travel recovery.
Marriott’s Monday (Nov. 2) earnings reinforced that directional trajectory. The company reported third-quarter global RevPAR growth of 6.5%, including a 4% increase in business transient RevPAR and a 6% increase in group RevPAR. In the United States and Canada, those segments grew 5% and 7%, respectively.
Marriott CFO Jen Mason indicated that higher average room rates accounted for most of the business transient gains, an important distinction between companies booking more hotel nights and companies paying more for existing travel.
Hyatt’s results offered a more uneven, though similar, picture. Group RevPAR increased 8%, while business transient RevPAR advanced just 1% for the quarter. However, business transient growth accelerated to more than 4% in September, suggesting improving momentum heading into the final months of 2026. Hyatt also reported that corporate customers account for approximately 40% of its group bookings. Management indicated that corporate group business could finish 2026 roughly 7% above the previous year.
For its own part, Hilton reported that manufacturing, technology and workforce lodging each generated business transient growth exceeding 10% during the third quarter. That activity, industry-wide, may be connected to investment in artificial intelligence infrastructure, energy facilities and public works.
These are not necessarily discretionary corporate trips. Construction, engineering, installation and project management frequently require workers to be physically present.
See also: Disruption Pushes Business Travel to Reinvent Itself
Airlines Are Seeing the Demand, but Not All the Profits
Strong travel demand does not automatically translate into stronger profitability for every travel supplier, as can be seen across the airline segment of business travel. The issue, despite strong demand, were macro factors impacting carrier input costs. Surging jet fuel and crude oil prices have absorbed a massive share of carrier revenue growth across major airlines.
Delta Air Lines on Oct. 9 reported record September-quarter revenue but missed Wall Street estimates due to a sharp surge in jet fuel costs. Per the airline’s financials, fuel expenses rose 69%, and nonfuel unit costs increased 7.3% for the quarter.
American Airlines, for its part, posted Q3 revenue of $16.3 billion, driven by what management described as strong premium and corporate demand. However, a similar surge in fuel costs to the tune of around 68% added billions in expenses, pushing the carrier into a net loss for the quarter and leading management to lower 2027 capacity plans.
Of course, airlines aren’t without other tools to help weather macro uncertainties. Payment and other back-office innovation represents one such growth lever that PYMNTS Intelligence has been tracking for years. Modernizations such as instant payments and virtual cards can couple payment data with travel reservations.
Travel payments are even attracting interest from firms outside the traditional financial services perimeter. As covered here Oct. 27, Google is reportedly developing a new travel payments capability for its digital wallet.
Recent PYMNTS Intelligence research shows that merchants could hold onto more customers by accepting the digital wallets those buyers already use, with “wallet gaps” putting around 36 million U.S. consumers in danger of walking away. The finding comes from ”The Hidden Cost of Checkout Gaps: What 56 Million Abandoned Carts Mean for U.S. Merchants and How Agentic AI is Changing What Comes Next,” a PYMNTS Intelligence report produced in partnership with PayPal.
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