Business travel is growing again, but the risk picture is changing. Flights and hotels still dominate the budget conversation, yet the messy part often begins after landing: how employees move from airport to hotel, from hotel to meeting, or across a city they do not know.

New research from CMAC Group puts that problem in sharper focus. Its independent study, conducted by Censuswide among 500 travel managers, found that 24% see employee safety as a primary concern when staff travels overseas, while 25% say reliable ground transport abroad is their biggest operational challenge. That is not a small admin issue. It is a duty-of-care gap hiding in plain sight.

The timing matters. The Global Business Travel Association expects business travel spending to keep rising, with Business Travel News Europe citing a forecast of $1.69 trillion in 2026, up from $1.57 trillion in 2025. More trips mean more fragmented journeys, more out-of-policy decisions and more pressure on travel managers to know where people are when something goes wrong.

Convenience has a limit

CMAC’s study found that 42% of travel managers rely on ride-hailing services when employees travel internationally, often because approved or managed transport options are not consistently available in every destination. Anyone who travels for work understands why. A ride-hailing app is quick. It feels familiar. It solves the immediate problem.

But corporate travel is not only about getting from A to B. It is about supplier standards, traveller visibility, receipts, escalation, safety checks and what happens when a flight lands late at midnight in a city where the employee has never been before.

READ MORE: TUI Adds Omio Ground Transport to Its Travel Ecosystem

That is where CMAC’s research becomes interesting. It suggests managed transport services are trusted twice as much as ride-hailing providers during business-critical situations. The message is not that ride-hailing is bad. The message is that convenience has quietly become a substitute for control.

Ashley Seed, Chief Commercial Officer at CMAC Group, put it directly:

“As business travel continues to grow, organisations are realising that domestic ground transport programmes aren’t fit for international purpose. Fragmented booking methods and inconsistent supplier standards are creating safety and compliance headaches for businesses operating internationally.”

One platform, fewer blind spots

CMAC is responding with an expanded international business travel offering built around global supplier coverage, traveller tracking, consolidated billing and 24/7 support through one managed platform. The company says it now coordinates access to more than seven million connected vehicles worldwide, covering major business travel markets across Europe, North America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other regions.

Seed added:

“Travel managers are telling us they want a simpler, more connected approach internationally. 70% want their existing suppliers coordinated through a single central platform and 76% believe simplified international booking with 24/7 support is highly valuable.”

That is the real market signal here. Travel managers are not asking for another policy document. They are asking for infrastructure. A practical layer that connects suppliers, travellers, finance teams and support desks in a way that works internationally, not just domestically.

It also fits a wider corporate travel trend. Travel programmes are moving toward platforms that centralise visibility across booking, support, expense and risk. Amex GBT, CWT, BCD Travel and Navan have pushed that logic across air, hotel and expense. Ground transport has simply lagged.

Connectivity is part of the duty of care

There is another piece that companies often underestimate: mobile connectivity. When business travel increases, roaming exposure increases with it. A delayed flight, a last-minute taxi change, a video call from the airport, or hotspot use in a hotel lobby can quickly turn into roaming shocks, especially when employees rely on domestic SIMs outside their home market.

This is where enterprise eSIM management becomes relevant. Yesim’s OneBalance is positioned as a corporate eSIM management platform that lets companies distribute, monitor and control mobile data for global teams from one place. Yesim describes the platform as a way to save on roaming costs, simplify connectivity and manage mobile data centrally for a travelling workforce.

READ MORE: Roaming Is a Business Travel Risk. SureSIM’s Webinar Shows How to Fix It

That may sound separate from ground transport, but operationally, it is linked. If a company wants to track travellers, support them after disruption, issue alternative transport and keep employees reachable, connectivity is part of the duty of care. A managed transport platform helps move the traveller. A managed eSIM platform helps keep the traveller visible and connected.

The real lesson

CMAC’s expansion is less about cars and more about control. Business travel used to be managed around the big-ticket items: flights, hotels and expenses. Now the weak points are the smaller moments between them: the taxi booked outside policy, the employee who cannot be reached, the roaming bill nobody expected, and the receipt that appears two weeks later with no context.

That is why this category is becoming more strategic. Managed ground transport providers like CMAC are solving one part of the problem. Travel management companies are solving another. Enterprise eSIM platforms such as Yesim OneBalance are solving the connectivity layer that sits underneath the whole journey.

The companies that get this right will not simply write stricter travel policies. They will build cleaner travel infrastructure around employees: approved transport, live support, controlled connectivity and better visibility across borders. In a travel market that is growing but also becoming more complex, that may be the difference between a business trip that works and one that quietly runs out of control.