Interest-group spending on private congressional travel reached its highest point since before the pandemic.
Members and staff accepted 1,721 trips worth more than $8.1 million in 2023, according to a LegiStorm review of official trip disclosures. Nearly 60% of those travel expenses went toward courting members, who accepted 326 trips worth $3.6 million.
That marks the highest annual travel spending since 2019, when interest groups allocated $9.3 million (adjusted for inflation) for member and staff travel.
Congressional travel halted as the pandemic hit in March 2020 and began to rebound in 2021.
Since then, sponsors have opted to send members and staff on a smaller number of more expensive trips compared to years past. Congress's 1,721 cost an average of $4,700 this past year. In 2019, sponsored paid an inflation-adjusted average of $4,000 each across 2,317 trips.
That trend is even more pronounced among Democrats, whose trips made up 40% of last year's travel. Democrats' travel averaged $6,400 a piece; Republicans' travel averaged $3,600.
The American Israel Education Foundation ($1.9 million) and the Aspen Institute ($1.1 million) were the year's top spenders.
