Concur Expense data reveals business travel spending rises in 2024 for Australian and New Zealand organisations

An analysis of Concur Expense data shows that Australian and New Zealand (ANZ) organisations spent more on business travel in 2024 than the previous year. We looked at domestic and international air travel bookings in Concur Travel for 2024 and compared them to those in 2023. We found that domestic air travel volume for business trips was up 3% year-over-year (YoY) and international travel volume increased nearly 6% across ANZ companies.

After looking at volume, the return to business travel made us curious about spending on corporate travel programs. Our 2024 Global Business Travel Survey found that nearly a third of business travellers said their company was focused on cutting back on travel costs.

Despite this, Concur Expense data collected in 2023 and 2024 indicates that the total number of expense transactions increased 13.73% YoY in ANZ, with the average expense transaction costing $125. While the 2025 economic outlook might be uncertain, we saw more stable spending in 2024.

Change in number of transactions per expense category

(1) Gas refers to fuel expenses.
(2) Mileage refers to reimbursement based on kilometres driven.
(3) Miscellaneous refers to expenses that don’t fit within a company’s defined expense categories.
(4) Other refers to non-standard expense categories.
(5) Telecom includes wired and wireless telephone fees as well as the costs of phone and communication devices.

Transactions increased across the board in ANZ between 2023 and 2024. Looking at the total number of expense transactions in each spend category, mileage (20.53%), miscellaneous (19.65%), and meals (18.54%) saw the highest percentage increases. This aligns with Concur Travel data showing an increase in business travel in 2024.

On the other hand, categories such as car rental (1.9%), office expenses (5.61%), and telecom (6.63%) saw smaller changes. Office expenses include office supplies, furniture, etc., while telecom-related expenses include telephone fees or the cost of mobile devices.

We’ve also seen modest growth in parking (14.65%) and gas-related transactions (10.04%) which are often tied to driving personal vehicles. Employees may have opted for alternative transportation methods, with train travel up 11.89% and ground transportation (including taxi and ride share) up 12.83%.

Average transaction amount by category

The average expense transaction amount per category remained largely flat YoY across ANZ, with no change across categories including car rental ($165) and telecom ($90). Categories such as entertainment, meals, office expenses, and parking saw minor cost reductions of $1 on average. Miscellaneous expenses recorded a decrease from $195 to $188.

Conversely, some categories experienced modest increases, such as air travel-related transactions (rising from $388 to $405) and gas ($71 to $80), while train travel recorded a significant increase from $77 to $114. These changes likely stem from inflation and increased demand for travel.

“Concur Expense data showed a more ideal year for corporate spending in 2024—one where we saw increased spending yet fairly flat average costs per transaction,” according to Chris Juneau, senior vice president and head of product marketing for SAP Concur.

Cost control and compliance

Organisations rely on expense policies and automated expense management tools to rein in employee spending. These methods are important because, on average, 15% to 20% of expense reports contain non-compliant spending. Most stem from errors and wasteful spending—such as duplicate transactions, not providing itemised receipts, or excessive spending against expense report benchmarks—rather than employees acting with malicious intent.

We know this because, at SAP Concur, we offer Intelligent Audit and Concur Verify to identify non-compliant spend and potential fraud. Both solutions use artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to process more than 80 million compliance checks per month.

“The expense management process should be as accurate, painless, and compliant as possible because businesses spending more on employee expenses translates to stronger business outcomes, greater innovation, and deeper customer connections,” says Juneau.

Methodology: SAP Concur analysed aggregate expense transactions in Concur Expense between January 1, 2024, through December 31, 2024, and equivalent time periods from 2023. Expenses for this analysis were tagged as “airfare”, “car rental”, “entertainment”, “gas”, “ground transportation”, “lodging”, “meals”, “mileage”, “miscellaneous”, “office”, “other”, “parking”, “telecom”, and “train”. Averages in the charts above include the cost of ancillary and other related charges.