Leaders and employees still see plenty of positives to business travel, according to a new report, but are also wary about economic, technological, and political disruptions.

The latest edition of the SAP Concur Global Business Travel Survey [PDF], released June 15, is based on responses of 3,300 business travelers, 800 travel managers, and 700 CFOs from around the world, including the United States. Overall, participants are upbeat about the importance of business travel—97 percent of CFOs say it supports growth, and 93 percent of employees say it bolsters well-being.

However, rising travel costs have many respondents concerned. Eighty-two percent of CFOs say they’ve increased their travel budgets, up from 76 percent last year. But the bigger budgets have placed CFOs at loggerheads with travel managers; 89 percent of CFOs say they need more detailed justifications for business travel, while 84 percent of travel managers say they need more support from their CFOs. More specifically, managers are looking for more data to show ROI, more AI support, and more resources.

Safety is a concern as well, with 67 percent of employees saying they’re “nervous about traveling this year,” and only 58 percent say their employer can extract them from danger during a trip. 

“As companies pour more resources into travel programs…organizations are challenged to meet rising employee expectations while managing unprecedented complexity,” stated a release regarding the survey.

The use of AI—especially in unauthorized ways—has added another challenge. Around 90 percent of travel managers and CFOs say they suspect employees are using AI to falsify travel expenses, and nearly three-fourths of travelers (72 percent) say they have or would use “shadow” (i.e., unauthorized) AI tools to plan or book business travel. 

The lack of clear guidelines and support around AI has created anxiety all around, the survey found. A fourth of travelers say they haven’t submitted a legitimate business expense for fear of unwanted scrutiny. The report prompted leaders to do more to establish policies that help facilitate employees using approved travel tools.

“[Employees] are making a practical judgment that the solutions available do not meet their needs or that they’re not receiving advanced capabilities in the first place,” the report says. “If approved tools are inadequate or absent, employees will inevitably move to channels outside of organizational control.”

Among the most popular tools that travelers are seeking: AI integration into daily workflow tools like email and calendars, more use in communication tools like Slack and Teams, booking notifications, and chatbots.

Integration doesn’t just improve security and efficiency, the report says; it can also resolve the trust issues that the survey findings seem to reveal.

“The disconnect between what leaders believe is happening and what employees are experiencing on the ground is where programs succeed or fail,” the report said. “The path forward for travel leaders should be less enforcement and more listening, less assumption and more data. Above all, it demands recognition that trust is not a soft metric: it is the foundation on which compliant, effective, and sustainable travel programs are built.”