The new travel manager

Lela Loudou, Global Head of Travel at Kuehne + Nagel, argues that expertise should decide who signs off on a trip. “Often the line manager approving travel doesn’t have an idea about travel, they just press the approve button,” she said. “Why don’t you leave it with a travel office that knows the options and offers better?”

Modern technology is empowering travel managers to provide a stronger, more targeted array of insights to stakeholders without weeks or months of data processing. Pete Crow, Global Travel and Expense Manager at PACCAR, frames this evolution around data discipline that mimics the wider data-driven approach of larger corporations.

“If all we were doing was throwing travel data at stakeholders, 95% of which had zero impact on their decisions, we weren’t adding value. We were just polluting their workday with noise,” he said. Partnering with stakeholders to surface the numbers that help inform their decisions is now crucial.

Cost always mattered, but traveler value and well-being now sit alongside cost in importance to stakeholders. The best travel programs are balancing all three.

Financial pressure has increased alongside shifts in the global economy that have increased air fares and hotel rates. 72% of buyers say the biggest hotel booking pain point is travelers saying “I found it cheaper somewhere else,” and the average self-reported leakage rate sits at 32%, according to 2026 research from GBTA and Spotnana.

Loudou described that balancing act as the core of the job, particularly in recent years with travel disruptions and cost increases caused by the pandemic and Middle East conflict.

“We are being called to bring the balance between the organization and the traveler,” she said. “Cost efficiency, then well-being. They have even invented some new policies for this, giving an extra day when they fly economy instead of booking in another higher class.”

Even so, focusing on price alone ends up missing the importance of traveler experience and the business value it can help drive.

When a conversation on travel spend focuses on price alone, Crow focuses on the value provided to the traveler. “I like to pivot the conversation to: let’s take a look at what you are able to spend and get the most out of that trip,” he said. “Is saving $5 or $10 a booking worth the frustration that comes from lower service or lower quality tools?”

The booking and servicing experience has become a lever for both cost and value at once. When the tools work, travelers feel taken care of. When they don’t, they book outside of policy.

Suzanne Boyan, Global Meetings and Travel Manager at ZS Associates, offered a case where the balance paid off. She once rerouted a traveler through a snowstorm so he could make it home in time for his daughter’s birthday.

“He was able to accomplish his work goal of meeting with his clients, but also his personal goal of being a present dad,” she said. “Both of those can live in harmony together through a really high-tech travel program.”

Delivering that balance at scale depends on the tools that power travel programs underneath the hood.

The rise of artificial intelligence (AI) is dominating the industry conversation right now, and the travel managers we spoke with responded with a combination of healthy skepticism and excitement for enhancements to their travel programs.

The data suggest the industry is still early in terms of adoption: 58% of buyers say AI has had little or no impact on their program so far, and only 12% rated the impact as 4 or 5 out of 5, according to 2026 research from GBTA and Spotnana.

Dery put the hype in perspective with a comparison to another long-promised technology. “I like to think of AI as the new NDC,” she said. “We’ve been talking about NDC for 10 years and we’re still trying to get it to work. At least now we’re talking about something else.”

The payoff from back-end work is beginning to show up in traveler experience, with the technology working in the background. A disruption rebooked automatically, a corporate card flagged before expiration, a spend forecast that requires no manual cleanup; each removes friction without the traveler ever interacting with AI directly.

As AI automates repetitive tasks, relationships remain vital to bringing together a cohesive travel program. Boyan drew the line clearly. “Anything that is hyper process-oriented is ripe for disruption from AI,” she said. “It is the strategic leverage that you bring through your relationships, and through the integration of technology and data storytelling, that AI will have a harder time disrupting.”

Relationships with partners kept getting named as core to providing the best possible experience to travelers, particularly in an era of increased automation. Amos said her network that gets things done doesn’t appear only on the ZS Associates org chart.

“When I refer to my team, I don’t mean only internal employees,” she continued. “My team is my hotel reps, my airline reps, my TMC account manager, my booking tool account manager, my corporate card account manager.”

Feedback from travelers and stakeholders remains vital to improving travel programs and ensuring travelers have a positive experience.

Fazal Choksi, Director of Indirect Procurement and Global Head of Travel at Ciena, uses a monthly standing meeting to keep the traveler’s voice in the room. “We’ve got a travel council with sustainability, security, travel arrangers, global mobility, and we invite road warriors,” he said.

Even the most advanced program runs into issues that no single travel manager can fix, especially without timely feedback from end users and stakeholders.

Revenue-model transparency came up unprompted from multiple travel managers. The ambiguity of how TMCs, OBTs, and travel providers make money, they said, gets in the way of an honest conversation between buyers and partners.

Buyers increasingly want these issues discussed publicly, rather than remaining the elephant in the room during negotiations.

Choksi made the case sharply. “There is no transparency in terms of the revenue structure,” he said. “We know that the TMCs and the OBTs are getting a cut [of supplier revenue], and we don’t know what that is. You need to make money, for sure, I don’t have an issue with that. But should it be at the expense of the people who are actually buying those services and goods?” He framed the setup as a possible conflict of interest.

The same opacity bleeds into supplier negotiations, where buyers feel they are owed data on the money changing hands based on their spending. Choksi said airlines will not share what they pay TMCs and OBTs even when he asks directly, despite his organization buying the tickets.

The stakes go beyond line-item math. Supplier relationships are what travel managers fall back on when a program is under pressure, and that goodwill is hard to bank when the financial transparency only runs one way.

Dery described the value of maintaining strong relationships with suppliers. “Without that supplier network and those relationships that have been built up over the years, when you really need your supplier to go above and beyond, it’s hard to ask,” she said. “But when you do have those relationships, it can facilitate a lot.”

The advice these seven offered for someone stepping into the role landed in two camps. The first was patience: learn how corporate travel really works before trying to change a program.

Crow made the case against arriving with a set of predetermined program fixes. “Resist the urge to prove your worth by bringing in some kind of change early,” he said. “First and foremost, get an idea of what the company culture is like and what kind of value-add your role is expected to have. Don’t go into a new role with a preconceived notion of what that value-add is going to be.”

Amos echoed the theme with a tactical move: she had her team sign up for the BTN daily newsletter and read every article for the first month, then get involved in a local GBTA chapter early. Dery added that any business case for change has to be built around what the business needs, with the end user front of mind.

Part of the case for patience is that the ecosystem is more tangled than newcomers expect. Boyan learned that through experience.

“The ecosystem is a puzzle,” she said. “It wasn’t until I was a few years in that I realized how absolutely insane the ecosystem is in order to make corporate travel work. Without the basic understanding of it, anything else is really difficult, and I do think [educating new entrants is] one thing our industry doesn’t do very well.”

The second camp discussed the importance of relationships. Once you have your bearings, the relationships in and around the program provide the widest range of benefits, and Choksi described travel management as a relationship business rather than a purely technical or analytics.

Sitto offered the most specific version of the advice. “Your relationships matter the most,” he said. “A couple of things: don’t take it personal, this is business. And learn how to communicate with stakeholders early on. Go after the ones you may not hear from, people that seem kind of removed but actually control your global payments program. They could be your biggest ally.”

Across all seven interviews, the through line is consistent. The travel manager role has grown more strategic, more accountable to traveler value, and more dependent on relationship-building. The tools that power travel programs will continue to evolve, but what holds a travel program together is people.