Air and hotel costs ease as rail and rental car prices trend upward
Even some of the most advanced algorithms will have trouble looking deep into the future to make accurate predictions. To combat this uncertainty when analyzing trends across all travel categories, we’ve decided to produce a quarterly travel price index report for air, hotel, rail, and rental car prices.
Market snapshot: North America
After a challenging year marked by softer demand, a shrinking domestic market, and operational disruptions, North America’s air market is positioned for a gradual recovery in 2026. Expected relief from recent operational challenges, coupled with a steady rise in demand, may still put upward pressure on prices in some regions. In Q1, domestic and international economy fares are easing to most destinations, while business fares remain mixed year-over-year.
While hotel rates are expected rise in many markets globally, North America is the major exception. Most U.S. markets are seeing a decline in Best Available Rate (BAR) performance, leaving overall pricing flat to slightly down. Still, key business hubs such as New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles are posting strong gains supported by steady corporate demand and limited supply in premium segments. In contrast, Canada is showing modest upward momentum, with several markets posting moderate rate increases.
Rail pricing is heating up this quarter, driven in large part by major upgrades introduced in the Northeast Corridor late last year. Amtrak’s new premium NextGen Acela trains add more capacity and bring improved design, comfort, and speed, which is pushing fares higher. The biggest jump is expected on the New York – Boston route, with a 15% rate increase.
Following a period of stable and declining rates, rental car pricing is expected to nudge upward in Q1. Most North American markets should see only modest increases, though cities like Los Angeles are likely to experience more noticeable jumps.
One of the most challenging parts of being a travel manager today is understanding how the constant change in the industry affects your program. Our air and hotel experts have used the travel price index to come up with some key focus areas for travel managers to address.
Air program focus areas
Now is the perfect time to ensure your program is positioned for value-driven performance. Start the year with a solid analytics and reporting foundation to ensure you can accurately benchmark fares, track market changes, and forecast pricing to identify savings opportunities early. If you haven’t already, include carbon tracking as a core KPI to bring sustainability directly into your performance framework. And as NDC continues to evolve, maintaining strong supplier relationships and reinforcing the value of booking through approved channels will help you optimize spend while delivering a consistent traveler experience.
Hotel program focus areas
With 2026 sourcing in the rearview, Q1 is prime time to look for opportunities to optimize your hotel strategy. Take the time to audit your OBT, ensuring preferred hotels are easy to find, rates are accurately displayed and any unnecessary clutter is removed. Monitoring rate availability and visibility early will help you catch gaps before they lead to missed savings. After all the work you put into sourcing a strong program, ensuring the booking experience is clean and intuitive is key to boosting traveler confidence and optimizing spend.
What is an index?
As a quick reminder, it’s important to note that this report is not a forecast. A forecast uses published rates and fares, along with other socioeconomic data and world events to predict how rates and fares will change. This is an index. An index quantifies how published rates and fares are changing and avoids making predictions for long-term trends.
The Advito travel price index looks at actual, historical pricing data and compares it with future shopping data for the remainder of the quarter to analyze variance versus the previous period and the trend versus the previous quarter. We are shopping millions of public price points, and our shopping technology behaves like a business traveler. Our first index was released in Q4 2022, and after a positive response from clients looking to understand pricing trends in the short- to medium-term, we have produced similar reports for each quarter.
The full report features global trends, a breakdown of each region, as well as travel sector types. In the air analysis, we look at both business and economy class fares, as well as intercontinental and regional travel. In the hotel report, we’re analyzing the variance in average daily rates between Q1 2026 and Q1 2025, as well as the quarter-over-quarter trend. The result is a reliable report based on published airfares and hotel rates that does not make long-term predictions.
Interested in the full Advito Travel Price Index Report? Reach out to your consultant today. Not an Advito client? Access your copy of the full report with a breakdown of each region here!