Concur has released a comprehensive new report on the state of business travel that reveals, among other things, that home-sharing services such as Airbnb, VRBO and HomeAway have seen a dramatic increase in popularity among business travelers.
Concur, the Bellevue, Wash.-based travel expense company acquired by SAP in 2014, says in its report that home-sharing saw a 56-percent increase in usage from the first quarter of 2015 to the same period this year. On average, business travelers stay five nights when home sharing, compared to three nights when staying at a traditional hotel, Concur said.
Data from 2015 shows that eight percent of U.S. business travelers used home-sharing accommodations at least once on a business trip and that number is expected to approach 10 percent in 2016 as more companies approve the use of home-sharing services.
Airbnb increased its push toward business travelers two years ago when it launched a partnership with Concur in which users of Concur’s TripLink booking service gained the ability to reserve Airbnb listings straight from Concur’s platform.
Concur’s report analyzed business travel booking and expense reporting data from its database of more than 40 million users, representing more than $76 billion in annual spending.
Mining that data reveals some interesting numbers, and last year, Concur says it processed 86 million expense reports, while users booked 46 million flights and expensed 74 million hotel nights. They expensed nearly $10 billion in ground transportation and $12 billion in dining and entertainment.
If you’ve ever sweated adding a few drinks to a post-trip expense report, check out a these revealing line items shared by the company:
- The single highest line item submitted on an expense report was for $2.2 million.
- 84 people expensed between 360 and 365 hotel days.
- The most expensive car rental expensed was for $31,082 in Tulsa, Okla.
- The most expensive ride sharing transaction was for $27,244 in New York City.
