How emerging cities are reshaping business mobility

This article is authored by Latika Bolar, business head, corporate travel, Ebix Travels.

India’s business map no longer fits neatly into a schedule connecting five large metropolitan cities. A client meeting may take place in Bengaluru, but the project site could be in Tumakuru. A leadership team may fly to Ahmedabad and continue by road to Sanand or Dholera. Manufacturing, logistics, technology services and startup activity are creating routes that did not previously appear in a company’s regular travel pattern.

Emerging cities and business (Photo for representational purposes only) (pexels)

This geographical spread is changing corporate travel from a predictable metro-to-metro activity into a more varied mobility requirement. Organisations must now move employees between headquarters, regional offices, industrial clusters, capability centres, supplier locations and project sites, often through a combination of air, rail and road travel.

The shift is visible in the scale of corridor development. A Press Information Bureau release published in February 2026 stated that projects across 11 industrial corridors were under implementation, with four projects completed and four nearing completion. These corridors include nodes across Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Odisha and several other states.

Alongside manufacturing clusters, Global Capability Centres, data and technology operations, warehousing networks and regional startup ecosystems are widening the base of business activity. Government initiatives are also seeking to support innovation and talent development in Tier II and Tier III cities, encouraging a more geographically distributed enterprise ecosystem.

Research firm IMARC Group valued India’s business travel market at $ 44.61 billion in 2025 and projected it to reach $ 81.54 billion by 2034. The growth opportunity will depend partly on how efficiently companies can connect these emerging centres with their employees, customers and partners.

Traditional travel policies were designed around mature routes with frequent flights, familiar hotels and predictable local transport. Emerging corridors require a broader calculation.

A cheaper flight may offer poor value if it lands too late for a three-hour road journey. A hotel with a lower room rate can increase the total trip cost when it is far from an industrial site. A restrictive ticket may create avoidable costs when a project meeting is likely to move. Companies therefore, need to assess the complete journey rather than optimise each booking in isolation.

Employee experience also has a direct operational consequence. An exhausting connection, unsafe late-night transfer or poorly located hotel can affect productivity at the meeting or site visit for which the trip was approved. Cost discipline remains essential, but it should include time, reliability, safety and the purpose of travel.

As routes diversify, manual travel management becomes difficult to scale. Integrated platforms can bring bookings, approvals, policy rules, traveller profiles, supplier information and expenses into a common workflow. Employees gain clearer options, while finance and travel teams receive visibility before money is spent rather than only when a reimbursement claim arrives.

The value of the data extends beyond reporting. A company may discover that an occasional route has become a weekly movement, creating a case for negotiated hotel rates or dedicated ground transport. It may identify repeated out-of-policy bookings caused by inadequate approved inventory rather than employee behaviour. It may also see where flexible fares reduce the cost of frequent itinerary changes.

Real-time alerts and centralised itineraries become especially important in locations with fewer alternatives. When a flight is cancelled on a high-frequency metro route, several replacements may be available. On a regional route, the response could require a rail booking, a different airport or an overnight stay. Travellers need support that can consider all these options together.

Corporate travel cannot remain a back-office process while business expansion becomes more distributed. Travel teams need early visibility into new plants, client locations, hiring hubs and project pipelines so that suitable routes, hotels, transfers and support networks can be prepared before demand becomes urgent.

This also calls for closer coordination among travel managers, finance, human resources, security and business teams. Policy should define where standardisation is useful and where local flexibility is necessary. A new corridor may need different booking windows, risk protocols or hotel thresholds from an established metro route.

India’s next phase of growth will be built through networks of cities rather than a small set of isolated centres. Seamless business mobility will help those networks function as one economic system. The organisations that plan for this shift will not merely move people more efficiently; they will be better equipped to enter markets, execute projects and build relationships wherever the next opportunity emerges.

(The views expressed are personal)

This article is authored by Latika Bolar, business head, corporate travel, Ebix Travels.