What we learned at GBTA 2025

Three weeks ago, nearly 5,400 attendees from 52 countries gathered together for the GBTA Convention 2025 in Denver, Colorado. 

This year marked Spotnana’s fourth time exhibiting at this event, with over 20 Spotnana team members attending to meet with customers and partners, lead demos of our Travel-as-a-Service platform, and host our annual mixer.

A group of Spotters at Spotnana’s booth

We also had three Spotnana leaders speak on Education Session panels this year. Here is a recap of those speaking engagements.

Is your TMC ready for 2030?

Mark Walton, Richard Buckham, Heather Allegrina, and Bill Brindle on stage

Bill Brindle, Spotnana’s EVP of Content and Commercials, moderated an interactive session with three key industry leaders:

• Heather Allegrina – Senior Manager of Global Travel & Expense at ServiceNow
• Robert Buckman – SVP of Solution Consulting at Amadeus
• Mark Walton – CEO at Solutions Travel

The 45-minute discussion explored the significant changes impacting travel management companies (TMCs), such as content fragmentation, AI, and Offers and Orders. The panelists offered insights on how the TMC market is evolving and how companies can prepare for their next RFP.

“The TMC of the future will be different in many ways, including servicing. The recent emergence of LLMs and agentic AI applications is opening the door to a new level of automation, efficiency, and cost savings,” said Brindle. “TMCs will shift from a world where upwards of 40% of transactions happen offline, to a world where only a small percentage of transactions are handled by live agents. Today, Spotnana sees 94% self-service online booking rates from customers.” 

A packed room for the “Is your TMC ready for 2030?” Education Session

Audience polls revealed 57% of attendees feel that the main challenge TMCs face is “keeping pace with innovation.” When asked about the impact of AI, 79% of audience members said it would significantly reduce transactions handled by live agents, thereby promoting self-service.

Robert Buckman also discussed the transformational change that will occur across the travel industry as airlines move away from legacy Passenger Service Systems (PSS) and adopt new Offer / Order systems. This platform change will open the door to modern retailing with personalized offers. However, it will also require TMCs and travel technology companies to significantly upgrade their technology to experience these benefits.

Additionally, Brindle referenced a recent GBTA and Spotnana study of corporate travel managers across the U.S. and Canada that found that 58% of travel buyers indicated they are considering or might consider changing their TMC next year. With so much innovation and change taking place in the travel industry, panelists recommended that travel buyers take a hard look at the technology offered by each TMC they evaluate and start asking about plans for supporting Offers and Orders.

Solving real travel policy challenges for growing SMEs

Alexis Rochat, Greeley Koch, and Geert de Boo before their panel

Alexis Rochat, Spotnana’s Senior Manager, Product, spoke on a panel organized by JTB Business Travel, one of our TMC partners. The panel included:

• Geert de Boo – VP of Global Business Travel at JTB Business Travel
• Greeley Koch – Managing Director at 490 Consulting

Together with Rochat, the panelists discussed how travel policies for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) must evolve to address new realities like tight budgets, lean teams, and increasing traveler expectations.

When asked about their biggest travel policy pain points, attendees most frequently cited compliance and leakage. However, a live poll showed that 53% of audience members believe technology reinforces their company’s travel policy well, compared to 21% who don’t use travel technology yet. A key takeaway was that technology can enforce policy without compromising the traveler experience through features like embedded prompts, smart booking flows, and in-app approvals.

Alexis Rochat speaking about the pain points that travel managers experience

“The biggest pain point we hear from travel managers is, ‘How do I make it intuitive for my travelers to understand the policy I am trying to communicate to them?’” said Rochat. “It’s not just about making the policy simple; it’s about making it easy to understand.”

A key takeaway was that technology can reinforce policy without impacting the traveler experience through embedded prompts, smart booking flows, in-app approvals, real-time feedback, and enhanced data visibility.

Rethinking your travel program relationships

Sarah Kuberry Martino, Justin Schuster, Chris Taylor, and Spencer Brace dressed for their panel

Inspired by the dating show Love Island, this fun session explored the idea that corporate travel can sometimes feel like a “blind date.” 

Spotnana’s SVP of Marketing, Justin Schuster, joined a panel with:

• Sarah Kuberry Martino – Chief Product Officer at Direct Travel
• Spencer Brace – Head of Partnerships at TROOP

The panelists sported reality show-inspired attire like sunglasses, sneakers, and even fake tattoo sleeves. Hosted by Chris Taylor, SVP Marketing at Direct Travel, the session used rapid-fire polls and hot takes to dissect what’s broken in travel programs and what solutions exist to address these challenges.

Audience polls revealed why travelers “cheat” on their travel program, with 37% saying it’s for “loyalty recognition” and 26% feeling “justified by lower fare/rate.” When asked what travel managers most want in a partner, 57% of audience members said “better traveler servicing/faster issue resolution.”

”We’re in a phase of tremendous innovation and change in the travel industry. When you look back across the history of the industry, there have been really big moments of transformation. The creation of the online booking tool thirty years ago was a big moment. And now we’re working to incorporate a lot of new content sources and figure out how to incorporate new capabilities like AI. There is tremendous progress happening,” said Schuster.

A key theme each of the panelists touched upon during the conversation was the importance of working together to address the challenges that exist in the travel industry and prevent travelers from experiencing the perfect trip. Schuster highlighted an example of how Direct Travel is working closely with Spotnana to reduce servicing costs by providing detailed feedback including time and motion studies of agents completing specific tasks.

See you next year at the GBTA Convention in Chicago! 👋

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