A recently conducted American Express Global Business Travel survey report provides several insights that are sure to help companies as they close out 2014 and gear up for the new year.

American Express' GBT asked its travel counselors to chime in on common traveler preferences and requests in order to gain a better understanding of what people want when they travel.

Among the many observations included in the report, it was discovered that business travelers take anywhere from 21 to 30 trips per year on average. Also, fall is the most active season for business travel, with 61 percent of travel counselors in agreement. 

Forty percent of travel counselors singled out three days as the most commonly booked trip duration.

When it comes to the accommodation preferences of business travelers, brand names matter most, with more than three-fourths (78 percent) of travel counselors citing brand names as the biggest factor for business travelers when booking a hotel room.

Free Wi-Fi is a distant second at 13 percent, with free breakfast accounting for seven percent of the response. 

Almost all (95 percent) said business travelers prefer aisle seats, and only 16 percent cited additional leg room as the most frequent request from business travelers when flying. 

Perhaps the most surprising findings of the GBT survey report are that nearly a quarter (21 percent) of travel counselors have received requests related to pets and some business travelers have asked to stay in apartments, castles and even tree houses. 

As far as cost-cutting strategies go, lower fare selections, economy seating only options and rate caps are the top policy and regulatory trends that travel counselors are seeing companies implement in an effort to save.

The insights gathered by the survey report will be extremely valuable to companies in the travel industry as they look to adapt in order to meet travelers' wants and needs. 

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