HOW INVESTING IN TRAVEL IS HELPING ENTREPRENEURS GROW THEIR BUSINESSES

New research shows 98 percent of small U.S. businesses sent employees on work trips this year, a trend that will continue in 2026.

Despite continued concerns about weakening employment and the economy’s direction generally, small company owners remain optimistic about their own prospects in 2026. As part of their efforts to generate more business, entrepreneurs say they’ll keep spending on travel to find new customers and opportunities located far from their workplaces.

Small business data collected in recent research by American Express Global Business Travel indicates how important entrepreneurs believe hitting the road is to their success. Amex GBT surveyed 500 American and U.K. small company leaders, finding 98 percent of U.S. respondents saying they sent employees on work trips between October 2025 and the same month last year. That was up from 91 percent who reported last January having done so during the previous year. Similar increases were reported at slightly lower levels by British respondents.

Those lofty figures indicated that despite disruptions arising from the White House’s import tariff policies, the simmering trade wars those ignited, and general worries about economic slowdowns, business owners on both sides of the Atlantic viewed travel as essential to keeping their enterprises growing.

There are several reasons that explain entrepreneurs’ continued willingness to strike out to places where they’ve identified opportunities — and create even more of those while on the road.

For starters, many U.S. respondents said they’d introduced new goods or services over the past year. For that reason, 82 percent of American business owners described getting face time with existing and prospective customers as important to communicate and market their recent innovations. That was true during travel-heavy 2025, and the vast majority of survey participants said they intend to do the same next year.

Another big driver of travel investment was reflected in the 81 percent of U.S. respondents who said they were optimistic about the outlook for their businesses in 2026. With confidence about those opportunities remaining relatively high in October — down only slightly from 86 percent in January — entrepreneurs said they’ll continue putting their people on the road next year to meet customers, and to find new areas of growth.

“Smaller businesses stayed the course through a turbulent year and, as they look to 2026, they remain optimistic,” Amex GBT’s vice-president of SME client management, Becky Power, said in comments announcing the survey results. “Almost nine in 10 have introduced new products and/or services in the last year, and as they pursue innovation and growth, more SMEs are sending their employees on work trips.”

How big has that commitment been up until now? According to earlier Amex GBT research, small companies in the U.S. and U.K. spent a combined $800 billion on business travel in 2024 alone. That’s likely to increase this year, and appears on target to climb higher in 2026.

Still, other areas of the survey made it clear company owners were a bit more concerned about opportunities closer to home, even as they travel to exploit others farther afield.

A third, or 35 percent of U.S. respondents said they worried their business could suffer from failing to fully maximize the potential benefits of artificial intelligence technologies (AI). Another 32 percent said their leading concern was not being able to attract skilled talent their companies need to grow.

Perhaps reflecting both of those worries at once, 30 percent of American survey participants were wary of rivals gaining an upper hand by becoming more innovative. But Power said their commitment to continued travel as a means of growing their businesses in 2026 indicated most entrepreneurs remain as confident they’ll overcome those challenges as they are about their business prospects generally.

“This is a tribute not only to their grit and self-belief, but to their awareness of the growth that can be unlocked through business travel, the possibilities posed by AI and their appetite for innovation — if they can seize these opportunities,” Power said.

This post originally appeared at inc.com.

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2025-12-03T19:34:44Z