The latest global survey of business travel highlights serious implications - both short and long term - of the recent erratic behaviour from Washington.

The impact for US accommodation providers and exporters promises to be, as President Trump might say, “the biggest ever IN HISTORY.”

In each case, short and long term, the indications are surely a microcosm of much wider trade behaviour.

The short-term moves come as no surprise: many businesses and business travellers had already announced plans to move away from the US for upcoming events and business sales trips. Yet the trend is rapidly gathering steam and becoming more wide-ranging.

According to the survey by GBTA, the Global Business Travel Association, the migration away from the US as a place for doing business is strong - and it’s gathering momentum alarmingly fast. “One-third of buyers (34%)...continue to expect the number of business trips taken at their company will decline in 2025, as a result of U.S. government actions.”

The most significant increases in concern for corporates and travellers were in the areas of safety and duty of care (46%) and border detentions (31%).

Most importantly, the survey responses strongly suggest a longer-term intention to seek out alternative markets. That will hurt much more deeply than a few months of buying away.

For the US tourism industry, a short-term shift in sentiment can be handled relatively easily - even while it means job losses and business damage. But a permanent drift away implies more fundamental change.

The US will always be a powerful consumer market in its own right, and an attractive destination. Companies will continue to be drawn to it - like it or not - but the trends do suggest the US’s business magnetism has peaked, and will continue to decline.

More than a third (35%) of non-US based industry professionals surveyed said their organisation was actively hunting for new markets - already travelling or planning business trips to meet potential trade partners or vendors outside the US, mostly in Europe and Asia Pacific.

In a similar April survey, 13% of buyers had cancelled US-based meetings. By July, this increased to 18%.

But over the same period, the number of companies that had cancelled sending employees to the US for events had doubled, to 20% - up from 10% just three months earlier.

It’s easy to become complacent about numbers like this, especially as President Trump causes “percentage inflation”, threatening as much as 30% and 50% tariffs on trading partners - numbers previously confined to major disputes.

Still, a sudden one-fifth reduction in inbound business events travellers has very significant ramifications for US accommodation providers, as well as for the vendors seeking to display their products to overseas buyers.

And the corollary impact is for those US vendors to feel a greater need to travel outside the US to connect with buyers - further entrenching the new direction.

Sounds like a double whammy, but this is almost a straw in the wind of the massive changes sweeping the world of trade. It is, however, where the rubber hits the road for trade.

(GBTA’s July poll, conducted in mid-June, surveyed 950 corporate travel managers, suppliers, travel management companies (TMCs), and other intermediaries across four regions and 45 countries.)

The continuing business travel decline in the US will be among the many topics to be discussed at FACTS, the biggest ever corporate travel and business events gathering ever held in Australia, at Sydney’s ICC on 25-26 November 2025.