While business travel has bounced back on the whole since 2009, it's been a mixed bag on a company-by-company basis. Business Travel News, which ranks firms by business travel spending, reports IBM bumped up spending from $500 million to $545 million from 2010 to 2011.

General Dynamics boosted its travel budget from $65 million to $256 million. And Accenture went from $185 million to $240 million. Not every company was opening its wallet, though. Boeing's travel budget dropped from $381 million to $263 million.

While travel to marquee business destinations like New York, London and Los Angeles really hasn't been affected, many smaller cities have found themselves less frequent destinations, due to technological advances and reduced service.

New areas are becoming popular, though. China is quickly becoming one of the top business destinations — and all signs indicate it's going to be leading the pack for several years. And waiting in the wings, it appears, is India. Both countries are opening up to investors from other countries. Both are also making major improvements to their national infrastructures, making it easier to do business there.

"Regionally, China is huge," says McGinnis. "All the largest hotel companies in the world have focused nearly all of their growth [there]. ... It's China that's getting the big 400-500 room hotels."

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