Two travel reports landed on November 5, one about where Americans actually went and one about why companies keep sending people on the road. Read together they say something simple. Americans booked close to home in 2026 and are dreaming further away for 2027, and the trips that are hardest to cut are the ones the boss pays for.
eDreams ODIGEO’s “A Year in Travel 2026,” built from search and booking data from American travelers on its sites, puts Las Vegas first for bookings, then Orlando, Fort Lauderdale, Atlanta, Dallas, Denver, Los Angeles, New York, Chicago and Miami. All ten are domestic. Mexico City was the top international booking, followed by Guadalajara. The searches looked different from the bookings. New York led searches and Tokyo came sixth, ahead of San Francisco and London. People browse abroad and buy at home.
Early 2027 searches push that further. Tokyo leads, then London, Paris, Orlando, Cancun, Rome, Honolulu, New York, Bangkok and Fort Lauderdale, with Manila, Ho Chi Minh City and Seoul in the top 15. Half the list is Asia or Europe. Whether those searches turn into tickets is the question for 2027, but airlines and Japanese tourism boards will take the signal.
Short trips, small spikes
The trips themselves were short. Three- and four-day trips made up 44% of bookings, two-day trips another 15%, and 68% of hotel stays were one or two nights. Fastest-growing booked destinations were San Francisco, up 87%, Mexico City, up 76%, and Minneapolis–St Paul, up 61%. Events moved searches hard: a Celine Dion run in Paris lifted Paris flight searches 52%, and Bruno Mars’s London dates sent German searches up 966%. Social media mattered most to Americans, 49% of whom said it inspired a trip somewhere new.
A travel company’s own booking data comes with obvious limits. It shows eDreams’ customers, a price-conscious crowd, not all American travelers, and the release gives no sample size. As a read on where budget-minded leisure money went, it’s still useful.
Business travel is the steady part
Navan’s eighth annual corporate travel report with Skift surveyed 994 business travelers and 758 travel and finance managers in the US, UK, France and Germany in August. 58% of travelers expect more work trips in 2027 and 71% expect more in-person meetings and events. 87% of travelers and 89% of managers call business travel essential or necessary. The share taking six or more work trips a year rose to 49% from 40% two years ago.
The pain is paperwork and disruption. 45% of travelers say an expense report takes them at least an hour, up from 35% a year earlier. 58% of travelers name disruption as a top worry against 31% of managers, a 27-point gap. When something goes wrong, 45% call a person right away and only 5% fix it through self-service. About three quarters still book outside the company’s approved tool at least some of the time. And 79% of managers want travel and expense on one platform, which is, of course, what Navan sells.
For hotels, airlines and destinations planning 2027, the two reports point the same way. Leisure travelers are price-led and short-stay, quick to book a long weekend somewhere drivable or a cheap domestic flight. Business travelers are growing in number and want fewer hassles more than lower fares. Tokyo gets the dreams. Las Vegas gets the bookings.