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In a corporate travel management environment marked by growing complexity and rapid shifts in technology, travel managers are increasingly faced with questions around content fragmentation, data inconsistency and loss of control. They find themselves turning back to the fundamentals for guidance. Meanwhile, travel management companies must ensure complexity doesn’t get in the way of the traveler experience.
Both agree that even with technology driving the bus, the bottom line is the need for humans to remain in the loop.
The balancing act sounds like travel managers and TMCs are trying to build the airplane while it’s still in flight. Businesses don’t stop developing and travelers’ needs don’t stop changing to allow the industry to wait on technological developments.
“Expectations have shifted significantly, but more importantly, they are still evolving in real time,” said Corporate Travel Management global chief technology officer Joel Bailey. “AI is already reshaping what travelers expect from their experience, and we are only at the early stages of what AI will enable. The baseline is no longer just ease and speed. Travelers increasingly want interactions to feel personalized, responsive and intuitive. They want less effort required at each step.”
At the same time, Bailey continues, organizations need policy compliance, cost control, and duty of care support. “That creates a new standard,” he says. “Programs must deliver both simplicity and control, while also becoming more proactive in how they support the traveler.”
The challenge is to corral information and delivery mechanisms to ensure the travel experience remains exceptional and compliant. Still, the most important issue is systems interoperability.
The first step, according to Charlie Sultan, president of Concur Travel at SAP Concur, is to define what success looks like. “Whether the priority is cost control, travel experience, flexibility, compliance, integration or all of the above, these outcomes should guide every technology decision,” Sultan says.
“Most often, it’s not just about individual capabilities; it’s about whether your technology can deliver productivity across the entire travel and expense process, from planning through expensing and reporting. The real differentiator is having a unified data foundation. When systems are connected natively, organizations can adapt more easily, generate better insights and make more informed decisions especially as new technologies emerge that can improve outcomes. The real value in the future will come from ensuring a company’s systems can all talk to each other to leverage the full power and productivity gain.”
Jeremy Dyken, vice president of information technology at Fox World Travel agrees. “The best solutions focus on orchestration,” he says. “The ideal solution leverages platforms that unify content, standardize data and provide a single control layer for policy, payments and reporting. Security and data privacy are also non-negotiable, especially as AI enters the stack.”
As for how to choose arrows in the quiver, Dyken told Business Travel Executive, “We start with outcomes, not tools. For me, the question isn’t ‘What’s new?’ but rather ‘What friction are we trying to remove for travelers, agents and clients?’ From there, we evaluate technology against three lenses: Business impact (in cost, revenue, efficiency), traveler experience and operational scalability. Typically, we would favor modular, API-first platforms that allow us to evolve without ‘re-platforming’ every 18 to 24 months.”
A key question for travel managers is how ease of use impacts compliance. According to Bailey, CTM relies on customers to guide progress. “What we consistently hear from customers is a need to improve the traveler experience without losing control, performance visibility, and the flexibility to adapt as the business evolves,” he says.
