The five U.S. cities seeing the fastest rate of business-travel growth might surprise you: The leaders are Princeton, N.J.; Durham, N.C.; Sacramento, Calif.; Honolulu, Hawaii; and the southwest Michigan area, which includes Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids.
That insight comes from the Amex Trendex: Business Travel Edition survey, which this year for the first time compared year-over-year business-travel hotel bookings to identify fast-growth cities. Researchers compared bookings from April 2022 to March 2023 with those between April 2023 and March 2024 to find the leaders.
Understanding that a hot climate for business travel can mean a growing demand for meetings, we compiled a list of the hotels with the most event space in each of the five trending cities. Here they are:
Princeton, N.J.
There’s no shortage of quality meeting properties in the Princeton area, but the one with the most group space is IHG’s 291-room Crown Plaza Princeton Conference Center with 60,000 square feet. That’s followed by the 302-room Princeton Marriott at Forrestal, with 35,009 square feet of meeting space.
Southwest Michigan (Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids)
Kalamazoo and Grand Rapids (right) are 50 miles from one another in a direct north-south line. In addition to being named as trending business destinations, each has a substantially sized hotel with 50,000 square feet of meeting space. In Kalamazoo, it’s the 340-room Radisson Plaza Hotel & Suites, and in Grand Rapids it the 656-room Amway Grand Plaza.
Durham, N.C.
Just a few miles from Durham, the Washington Duke Inn and Golf Course offers 271 guest rooms and 31,990 square feet of meeting space. Meanwhile, the 190-room Durham Marriott City Center is the downtown meeting-space leader with 31,935 square feet. Eleven miles south of the city, the 331-room Sheraton Imperial Raleigh-Durham at Research Triangle Park is similarly sized for groups, with 31,504 square feet of space. Also of note: the Raleigh-Durham Airport was the fastest growing U.S. airport in 2023, according to the Department of Transportation, adding four new airlines and 25 new destinations.
Sacramento, Calif.
For meetings in the California state capital (left), the 505-room Hyatt Regency Sacramento has the most meeting space at 24,144 square feet. Two other properties that come close are the Kimpton Sawyer Hotel (250 rooms, 20,000 square feet of space) and the Sheraton Grand Sacramento (503 rooms, 19,300 square feet of space). Access to the city will improve with Sacramento International Airport’s $1.3 billion expansion, which begins this year.
Honolulu, Hawaii
There are close to 100 hotels in Hawaii’s oceanfront capital city, many with significant group space. However, the 2,860-room Hilton Hawaiian Village Waikiki Beach Resort stands out for its 150,000 square feet of meeting and convention space. Also expansive is the 1,636-room Sheraton Waikiki Beach Resort with 75,070 square feet of group space.
In addition to its insights into trending business travel destinations, the Amex report looks at Millennial and Gen-Z business travel habits, expense innovations, business travel self-care habits, and more. It’s based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. business travelers and 500 U.S. business travel decision-makers.
