American Airlines recently conducted an online survey of more than 1,100 American Airlines Business ExtrAA travel managers of small- and medium-size businesses (SMBs) and found that 71 percent expect the economic outlook of their companies to improve over the next 12 to 18 months. Ninety-three percent of respondents said that face-to-face meetings are either crucial or helpful to the success of their business and approximately 86 percent said that they expect business travel to either stay the same or increase up to 24 percent over the coming year. They said their preferred hotels include Marriott (45 percent) and Hilton (42 percent) and Hertz was the preferred car rental brand (48 percent) followed by Avis (37 percent).