Growing a small business always comes with a bit of a tug-of-war. You’re told to chase new customers, break into new markets and think internationally, while in the same breath being reminded that keeping a tight grip on costs is often what decides whether you’re still around to see those ambitions through. What’s changed is how early those two pressures now collide, writes Andrew Harrison-Chinn, CMO at Dragonpass
Recent ONS data shows only 38.4% of UK businesses set up in 2019 were still trading five years later, and yet SMEs make up almost 99.9% of the UK’s private-sector businesses and generate roughly 51% of its turnover, according to the Department for Business and Trade. Smaller businesses are central to the economy, but they don’t have the financial cushioning of a multinational and cannot afford to build fixed costs around every stage of their growth.
In the government’s latest survey of registered businesses, 65% said they were aiming to grow, while 61% believed there was real global demand for British products and services. A pretty lean operation can already have customers, suppliers and employees scattered across several markets long before it ever builds a proper overseas presence, and business travel is one of the clearest places where the cost of that international reach starts to show up.
Video calls have cut out some trips, but there are still moments such as building a relationship, courting a big new customer or stepping into an unfamiliar market where being in the room simply matters more. Research from Dragonpass found that 33% of British employees who travel for work had put up with uncomfortable or poorly supported trips rather than seem ungrateful or unwilling to do the job. Another 32% felt their employer expected them to stay highly productive on the road without giving them the tools to do it.
Most SMEs can’t justify copying a large corporation’s travel policy, and nor should they need to. Strip the experience back too far, though, and the apparent saving can simply turn up elsewhere through lost working time or employees walking into important meetings already drained by the journey. Dragonpass found only 8% of workers said their travel policy covered things like Fast Track security, priority boarding or lounge access, even though 41% said less stressful travel would genuinely improve their experience.
The answer does not necessarily lie in paying more for the ticket. Someone flying a short hop to Europe might not need a premium cabin at all, but they could benefit from somewhere quieter to work or a quicker route through security. Separating those elements gives smaller businesses far more control over where additional spend is actually useful, rather than bundling comfort into a higher fare whether the traveller needs every part of it or not.
To put some numbers on it, Dragonpass analysis found that four London-to-Paris return trips in British Airways Club Europe would cost around £2,080 per employee. The same four trips on easyJet, with seat selection plus an annual Dragonpass membership, came to about £703. Scale that across 100 travelling employees, and the difference could reach £137,700.
The point isn’t that the cheapest fare should always win. Timings, flexibility and the purpose of the trip still matter plenty. Businesses simply no longer have to treat the airfare and the wider travel experience as one indivisible purchase. The more useful approach is to decide what support will make a particular journey work better, then provide it where it is actually needed.
That principle is increasingly important as international demand moves quickly between markets. Dragonpass network data recorded US lounge activity climbing 56.3% year on year in May 2026 and 19.1% in June. For SMEs, that kind of swing is another reason not to build international travel around permanently high fixed costs when commercial priorities can shift quickly.
Dragonpass for Business Travel applies that idea by allowing companies to add lounge access, Fast Track, dining credit, travel eSIMs and airport transfers separately from the underlying fare. It reflects a wider shift in how useful benefits are being thought about, where value comes less from providing a long list of extras and more from making the right support available at the point when it can genuinely improve the journey.
For smaller companies chasing international growth, the goal isn’t to become a miniature multinational as fast as possible. It’s to get the reach of one while keeping the cost base as adaptable as the business itself, so going global expands what a company can do without making it structurally heavier before it needs to be.
