For frequent business travellers, the journey itself has increasingly become part of the working day.
New research from the Global Business Travel Association gives an interesting indication of how businesses and travellers are approaching that journey.
Air travel remains the dominant form of transportation for business travellers surveyed by GBTA. Among respondents who fly for business, 42% said they typically travelled in premium cabins.
That's a significant proportion.
But the interesting story isn't simply about business class.
It's about the growing ecosystem of places in which work happens around a business trip.
From lounge to plane to hotel
A working day involving travel can move through several environments.
There might be an hour working in an airport lounge before departure, several hours on a flight, another period in transit and then work from a hotel before the next day's meetings.
Rail is important too.
GBTA found that rail plays a particularly significant role among business travellers in Asia Pacific and Europe, used by 72% and 60% respectively.
Together, those environments create something that didn't really exist at the same scale a generation ago: a constantly moving workplace.
The tools have changed accordingly.
Laptop batteries last longer. Connectivity has improved. Headphones can turn a crowded terminal into a relatively focused environment. Power adapters have become smaller. Displays can now be packed alongside a laptop rather than sitting permanently on a desk.
A workspace you can unpack
At espresso Displays, we think about this problem in a fairly literal way.
How much of your normal workspace can you take with you without making travel harder?
A portable display isn't designed to turn an economy seat tray table into a corporate office. There are plenty of environments where opening a second screen simply isn't practical.
But arrive at a lounge, hotel, coworking space or temporary office and the equation changes.
A thin second display can provide the additional screen space that many people rely on every day at home or in an office, and then disappear back into a bag when it's time to move again.
That's the broader change business travel is revealing.
The workplace isn't becoming one particular place.
It's becoming something people increasingly assemble wherever they happen to be.
With 1.84 billion business trips forecast globally in 2026, that mobile workplace is becoming a significant part of how the world works.
Source: 2026 GBTA Business Travel Index, Annual Global Report & Forecast, Global Business Travel Association, August 2026. GBTA research announcement