GBTA warns proposed ESTA overhaul threatens US company journey financial system

The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) has issued a stark warning to US Customs and Border Protection, arguing that proposed adjustments to the Electronic System for Travel Authorization (ESTA) may derail worldwide commerce and weaken American competitiveness.

In formal feedback filed final week, GBTA urged the federal authorities to undertake a balanced and sensible strategy. The affiliation contends that overly aggressive knowledge assortment and restrictive software processes will discourage high-value worldwide travellers and create important authorized friction with world privateness legal guidelines.

“Security and efficient business travel are not mutually exclusive. While GBTA strongly supports efforts to protect US borders and enhance traveler security, the proposed changes pose significant risks and could undermine the benefits that business travel brings to organisations who send their employees on international trips to the US and the American destinations who welcome them,” stated Suzanne Neufang, CEO of GBTA.

“A balanced approach will strengthen national security while ensuring that the US remains an accessible, desired and competitive meeting and conference destination for global business.”

The GBTA outlined a number of unintended penalties that would ripple by way of the journey ecosystem, together with a larger administrative burden as a result of necessities for multi-year social media histories, telephone numbers, and expanded household particulars. There can be a major danger of compliance conflicts with worldwide knowledge safety legal guidelines, such because the European Union’s strict mandates on private knowledge assortment. Furthermore, a mobile-only software system may create technical obstacles that battle with company safety protocols, whereas longer processing home windows might scale back confidence in predictable journey timelines.

New knowledge launched by the GBTA revealed a widespread sense of alarm, with a January 2026 ballot of 571 journey professionals throughout 40 nations exhibiting that 78 per cent are involved concerning the proposed shifts. The affect is especially sharp amongst European professionals, 67 per cent of whom say staff would favor to not journey to the US if required to reveal intensive private data.

This impact is already influencing company technique; 43 per cent of corporations reported they’re now extra more likely to maintain conferences outdoors the US, and almost 20 per cent plan to revise journey insurance policies to restrict US journeys.

The financial stakes are substantial, as enterprise journey beforehand generated a US$484 billion affect within the US and supported six million American jobs.

The GBTA warns that if these necessities divert conferences, occasions, and investments to different markets, the US stands to lose its place as a premier world vacation spot. The affiliation is asking on the CBP to refine these measures to guard nationwide safety with out sacrificing the important financial contributions of worldwide enterprise journey.