Hospitality experts reveal how hotels must adapt to shorter European business trips

Global interest in business travel is soaring, with Google searches for “business travel hotels” up by 1,025% over the past year and over 1.4 million searches for “business travel” in the past month alone. As the market rebounds, hotels are rethinking how to cater to modern travellers, balancing short business trips, extended leisure stays, and emerging trends like hybrid work and sustainability.

Hotel software provider Access Hospitality has analysed the average length of stay for travellers depending on destination, highlighting how hotels can use this information to optimise bookings, tailor services, and better meet the needs of both short-stay business guests and long-haul leisure travellers.

Revealed: How long business travellers stay by country

Short business trips dominate Europe

Most business trips in Europe are brief, with travellers in the UK, Ireland, Belgium, and the Netherlands averaging between 1.8 and 2.4 nights. This reflects the dominance of domestic business trips, short breaks, and city-centre bookings. Increasingly, these short trips incorporate remote or hybrid work, with guests blending business and leisure, driving demand for in-room workspaces, high-speed Wi-Fi, and tech-enabled meeting areas.

“Hotels are facing a fundamental shift in guest expectations”, explains Champa Magesh, Managing Director from Access Hospitality. “When 70% of your business travellers are gone within 2-3 nights, every hour of their stay counts. The properties thriving in this environment have reimagined their entire booking and service journey.”

“We’re seeing a clear dividing line in the market: hotels with intelligent, frictionless booking systems that can confirm, modify, and personalise stays in real-time are capturing the majority share of repeat business travel. Those relying on manual processes or outdated platforms are watching occupancy rates stagnate.

The question for hoteliers isn’t whether to modernise their booking infrastructure – it’s whether they can afford not to.“

Europe has some longer-stay exceptions

Switzerland (4.8 nights) and Germany (3.2 nights) have seen slightly longer stays compared to the rest of Europe, as travellers opt for combining corporate travel with leisure. Magesh added, “Hotels in these markets could benefit from upselling leisure extras such as spa treatments, local experiences, or dining packages, as well as offering longer-stay options.”

Asia attracts extended leisure stays

Trips to Southeast Asia tend to be much longer, appealing to remote workers and digital nomads, who value flexible workspaces. Thailand (16.8 nights for European visitors), Laos (over 15 nights), and the Philippines (11.6 nights) are popular leisure destinations, while Singapore (3.8 nights) serves as a short-stay business hub.

Distance travelled determines length of stay

Trip patterns vary depending on where guests are travelling from. In Malaysia, domestic travellers typically stay around 2.4 nights, while international visitors stay longer, averaging 4–6 nights. Similarly, in Thailand, the overall average stay is 9–12 nights, but European visitors stay even longer, averaging around 16.8 nights, highlighting how travellers’ origins strongly influence length of stay.

Champa added: “As business travel patterns continue to evolve, hotels need to be ready to adapt based on whether their market attracts short-stay travellers or guests that want to blend business with leisure on long-haul trips.

By understanding where guests come from, hotels can tailor pricing, manage inventory, and adjust services for different traveller types, helping them boost occupancy, drive revenue, and deliver a better guest experience.

The most successful hotels will offer flexibility and transparency using real-time data to tailor experiences that truly match how guests are travelling in today’s world.”