Going to the office used to mean grabbing a coffee and sitting in traffic. For some employees, it now means booking a flight, checking into a hotel, and hoping their colleagues picked the same days to show up. Hybrid work has changed more than how often people leave the house. It has changed where business trips begin, where they end, and why companies are paying to bring people together.
This is especially true for businesses that have allowed employees to relocate or hired people far from their offices. Gallup reported that, as of May 2026, 52% of U.S. employees with remote-capable jobs worked in a hybrid arrangement, a figure that has remained fairly stable since 2022. Companies are no longer waiting for the old travel map to return. They are learning how to work with a very different one.
The Office Became A Business Travel Destination
Business travel has always included trips between company offices, but flexible work added a different reason to pack a bag: visiting your own team. When employees live farther from their workplace, an occasional office visit may require a flight and hotel. Someone who rarely traveled for work before might now make several trips a year simply to see their manager and colleagues. Deloitte’s 2023 corporate travel study found an increase in trips to company headquarters by relocated employees, with companies paying for at least part of 70% of those trips.
A company’s headquarters also no longer tells its travel manager where most employees will begin their journeys. Research published in 2024 using Gusto payroll data found that the average distance between an employee’s home and employer location increased from about 10 miles in 2019 to 27 miles in 2023. The share living more than 50 miles away rose from 0.8% to 5.5%. The study focused mainly on small and midsized employers and measured the distance between recorded home and employer locations rather than daily commutes.
Much of that increase came from employees hired after March 2020. Companies were not simply allowing longtime workers to move away; they were also recruiting new employees who already lived farther from the office. That changes almost every part of arranging a group trip, from which airports employees use to how many hotel nights they need. It also raises a difficult policy question: when does getting to the office count as a commute, and when does it become business travel?
Team Gatherings Created A New Kind Of Trip
Remote and hybrid work removed many of the small interactions that once happened without planning. New employees cannot casually join lunch with colleagues who live in three different states. A difficult project discussion may need more attention than another crowded video call can provide. Some companies have responded by replacing regular office attendance with occasional, more deliberate team gatherings.
Atlassian offers one example. In a 2024 report on its distributed-work model, the software company said its teams met at one of its offices about three times a year to build relationships and move important projects forward. The company reported that these gatherings produced a 27% increase in employees’ feelings of connection, with the effect lasting four to five months. Atlassian also described its Austin offices, which opened in 2022, as spaces designed specifically for team gatherings.
Industry conferences have also become particularly valuable for geographically scattered businesses. Deloitte’s 2025 corporate travel study found that nearly two-thirds of surveyed business travelers expected to attend a conference that year. One event can provide meetings with several clients, prospects, and industry contacts, reducing the need to visit each one separately. External meetings still drive much of business travel, but hybrid work has made gatherings that provide several valuable interactions at once even more attractive.
The Best Meeting Place Might Not Be Headquarters
Headquarters used to be the obvious location for an internal meeting. Once employees are spread across different cities, it may be no easier to reach than any other destination. Imagine a Boston company with employees in Raleigh, Pittsburgh, Denver, and a smaller community several hours from a major airport. The same two-day meeting might require a short nonstop flight for one employee and nearly an entire day of travel for another.
Deloitte’s 2023 study found that half of surveyed companies had divided larger internal gatherings into smaller regional events connected virtually. That model allows employees to meet some colleagues in person without sending the entire company to one place. A business with employees across North America might hold simultaneous gatherings in several regions rather than organize one enormous event. It could also choose a well-connected city where it has no permanent office.
Smaller cities can benefit from this search for new meeting locations, especially when they are close to several groups of employees. But a cheaper hotel does not automatically make a destination less expensive. Limited flights, long connections, airport transfers, and additional hotel nights can quickly erase the savings. Companies need to consider the cost of the entire journey, including how much employee time it consumes.
Travel Budgets Have To Follow The People
Hybrid work does not necessarily mean companies are taking more business trips overall. Video calls can replace routine internal meetings, quick check-ins, and some client visits. At the same time, businesses are paying for new kinds of trips because employees who once sat in the same building now live hundreds of miles apart. Some travel has disappeared, while other travel has taken its place.
A company that reduces its office space may still need to spend money bringing employees together. Rent savings can be offset by flights, hotels, meeting rooms, meals, and ground transportation. Those costs may sit in different departmental budgets, making it difficult to see what the business is actually spending to support hybrid work. Existing airline and hotel agreements may also provide less value if employees now depart from a dozen airports and meet in several regions.
Travel policies need to reflect that new reality. Employees should know which office visits the company will fund, which departure location they can use, and whether travel time counts as working time. Companies also need clear rules for personal extensions, temporary work locations, and trips that combine several business purposes. Fairness matters as well when one employee takes a short train ride to a meeting while another needs two flights and two nights away.
A Different Map Requires A Different Question
Hybrid work has not eliminated business travel. It has removed some routine trips, created new ones, and made companies more selective about why people need to meet in person. Headquarters still matters, but so do employees’ home cities, regional meeting points, airline connections, and events where several useful conversations can happen in one place. The old travel map was built around offices; the new one requires companies to ask where a particular group can meet with the least wasted time and the greatest chance of accomplishing something that could not happen on a screen.
