Support for almost every under‑represented group of business traveller has gone backwards in the past year, with LGBTQ+, neurodivergent and younger employees among those losing the most ground, according to fresh research unveiled today by Business Travel Show Europe.

Polling 192 corporate travel professionals in April 2026, the annual study lays bare a widening gulf between the diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) ambitions that companies have spent the past decade trumpeting in their annual reports and the practical reality of the policies handed to staff before they board a plane. The headline finding is blunt: in a year of escalating geopolitical tension, rising identity‑based harassment and a workforce that is younger and more diverse than ever, corporate travel programmes are not keeping up.

The findings will make uncomfortable reading for HR directors, chief people officers and travel managers gathering at ExCeL London on 24–25 June for Business Travel Show Europe, Europe’s largest gathering of corporate travel buyers.

Accessibility and women’s safety lead, but progress is patchy

Travellers with accessibility requirements remain, marginally, the best‑served group. Some 41 per cent of organisations now report a dedicated policy in 2026, up from 35 per cent a year earlier but still adrift of the 43 per cent recorded in 2024. Perhaps more striking is the 42 per cent of companies that still have no accessibility‑specific provisions at all.

Support for solo female travellers tells a similar story of one step forward, half a step back. Thirty‑five per cent of corporates now have policies tailored to women travelling alone, an improvement on the 29 per cent recorded in 2025, but a fraction below the 36 per cent reached in 2024. More than half of organisations (51 per cent) still offer no targeted support, despite a steady drumbeat of global reports flagging harassment and personal safety as the leading concerns for women on the road. The Global Business Travel Association’s most recent Path to Parity research found that 62 per cent of travel buyers believe women face higher risks than men while travelling for work, a perception only loosely reflected in current policy provision, and one that we have explored previously in our coverage of solo and intentional travel for International Women’s Day 2026.

Sharp falls for LGBTQ+, racialised and younger travellers

The most uncomfortable trend in the data — particularly with Pride month days away, is the year‑on‑year retreat in support for LGBTQ+ travellers and several other high‑risk cohorts.

Coverage for LGBTQ+ travellers has slipped from 27 per cent in 2024 to 22 per cent in 2025 and now sits at just 20 per cent in 2026. The context is hardly reassuring: ILGA World’s latest maps and database record that 64 UN member states still criminalise consensual same‑sex acts, with the death penalty legally prescribed in seven. Sending an LGBTQ+ colleague into those jurisdictions without a tailored duty‑of‑care framework is, increasingly, a question for the legal department as much as for travel.

Elsewhere in the survey, support for travellers from marginalised races and ethnicities has dropped from 23 per cent in 2024 to 19 per cent in 2026. Provision for younger travellers has almost halved over the same period, from 26 per cent to just 14 per cent. Policies designed with neurodivergent travellers in mind, a group whose needs the airline industry is now beginning to recognise, as seen in Emirates’ recently expanded global travel rehearsal scheme for autistic flyers, have fallen from 18 per cent to 11 per cent.

Older and religious travellers slip down the agenda

Support for older travellers has fallen from 23 per cent in 2024 to 17 per cent in 2026, while provision for Orthodox religious travellers has slipped from 15 per cent to 12 per cent, a decline that lands awkwardly against a backdrop of rising antisemitic incidents in major business hubs and the continuing conflict in Gaza. In both cases, more than two thirds of organisations now operate with no specific policies in place.

‘Plans to implement’ collapse, momentum has stalled

If the current numbers are sobering, the pipeline is starker still. The share of travel managers saying they ‘plan to implement’ minority‑specific policies has collapsed across the board: from 14 per cent to just 5 per cent for accessibility needs, from 9 per cent to 3 per cent for LGBTQ+ travellers, from 10 per cent to 3 per cent for racialised travellers, and from 12 per cent to 1 per cent for neurodivergent travellers between 2024 and 2026.

In other words, the deficit is not about to be filled.

‘Programmes should be evolving faster’

Louis Magliaro, executive vice president of The BTN Group, which organises the Business Travel Show series, said the research suggested the proportion of companies with no minority‑specific policies had risen sharply in the last twelve months.

“This decline comes at a time when geopolitical instability, identity‑based harassment and generational expectations are all increasing, and one would expect corporate travel programmes would be evolving faster to protect diverse workforces,” he said.

He added, however, that travel managers were operating under unprecedented strain. “We need to remember the intense pressure and scrutiny travel managers are facing beyond risk management, to cut costs, make budgets work harder, assume additional responsibilities with fewer resources, and more. It’s not easy being a travel manager right now, which is why Business Travel Show Europe is designed to provide a shortcut to innovation; from the 200+ suppliers on the showfloor, to the conference content and the peer‑to‑peer networking with over 700 fellow buyers.”

Why it matters for buyers

The duty‑of‑care implications are difficult to ignore. With our own recent reporting showing that 60 per cent of UK business travellers believe their employer could do more to ensure their safety on the road, the gap between corporate rhetoric on inclusion and operational reality is becoming a recruitment, retention and reputational risk as much as a safety one.

For buyers heading to ExCeL next month, the message from the data is unequivocal: minority traveller support cannot remain a rolling agenda item. The pipeline of ‘planned’ policies has all but evaporated, and without deliberate intervention from procurement, HR and the C‑suite, the gap between DEI commitments and day‑to‑day travel programmes is set to widen further.