Corporate travelers booked 16.6% more nights this year and expensed less for each one
Emburse's expense data, which it tells finance teams to use when negotiating with hotels, shows corporate volume carried the first half of 2026 and faded by summer, with growth under 2% in August
by Markus Busch
Emburse, which sells expense software to companies, published its hotel numbers on October 8. Across the ten US cities where its customers record the most hotel nights, those nights rose 16.6% in the first half of 2026. Total lodging spend went from $14.5 million to $16.72 million. The amount expensed per night went the other way, from about $292 to about $289. Emburse's chief revenue officer, Michele Shepard, says the figures give finance and procurement teams a stronger footing for next year's budgets and for negotiating with suppliers.
The supplier is your hotel.
21.4% in the first quarter, 1.9% in August. The growth faded as the year went on. Recorded nights rose 21.4% in the first quarter and 11.9% in the second. Then June came in at 1.7%, July at 3.3% and August at 1.9%. Emburse marks the summer months as preliminary, because late expense reports can still change them. Even so, the curve flattened well before anyone sat down to plan 2027.
More nights from the same 583 companies. Emburse tracked a fixed group of 586 customers. In the first half, 583 of them recorded hotel stays in those cities, against 582 a year earlier. So the growth came from accounts that were already there. The number of employees expensing a hotel rose 7.5%, each of them recorded 4.8 nights instead of 4.4, and each lodging expense covered 2.28 nights instead of 2.13. Same companies, more people on the road, more nights each.
$289 is not your rate. Emburse is explicit that its per-night figure is expense divided by nights and "not a hotel rate." It does not say what sits inside that expense: taxes, resort and parking fees, perhaps whatever an employee itemized from the folio. In August we reported corporate travel growing on rate, from what the chains themselves reported. Both readings can hold, because they measure different things for different travelers: the chains report what they billed across their hotels, Emburse what 586 companies' employees claimed back.
The difference matters at the negotiating table. The buyer will arrive with the number from the expense system, and your revenue manager will arrive with the ADR.
The limits. Emburse sells to the finance teams it is briefing. The 586 companies are its own customers, and Emburse says the results are not representative of the US market. Expense records can repeat a stay, and the data cannot show whether employees took more trips or stayed longer on each. The summer months may still be revised.
Emburse released the figures ahead of 2027 budget planning, and Shepard's advice starts with the budget. The travel budget your rate has to fit inside can be set from these numbers before anyone reads your RFP response. The same expense data is also heading into BCD Travel's booking platform, under a partnership the two companies announced in August. The number your account negotiates with will reach its travel agency too.
Read also: Corporate travel is growing on rate, not on travelers
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