Report from Direct Travel, Spotnana and Troop shows rising expectations and growing frustrations
Direct Travel, Inc., a TMC, along with GBTA; Spotnana, a travel-as-a-service platform; and Troop, a meeting and group travel technology provider, released new research revealing a corporate travel industry under pressure. Based on responses from 195 global travel managers, The Perfect Trip Index: The State of the Managed Travel Experience highlights rising expectations and growing frustration with outdated systems.
The data show that travel managers are raising the bar on what they expect from their TMCs—citing inconsistent service (41%) and poor tech functionality (36%) as major friction points in need of improvement.
Christal Bemont, CEO of Direct Travel, said, “This is more than a wake-up call—it’s a signal that the future of managed travel is already taking shape.” Travel managers, she said, want intelligent, connected solutions that meet today’s needs and anticipate tomorrow’s challenges.
Those solutions, said Belmont, “are exactly what we’re building with Avenir—a platform powered by leading partners like Spotnana and Troop, designed to integrate global content, automation and high-touch service into one seamless experience.”
Avenir Travel Edition is the first release of Direct Travel’s modern technology platform, built on Spotnana Cloud. The platform will continue to evolve through in-house innovation and industry collaboration, including future editions developed with partners such as Troop.
Key findings from the report include:
● Online booking tools (OBTs) fall short: 64% report issues managing exchanges and cancellations and only 13% support self-service NDC changes.
● Poor integration degrades service quality: 73% prioritize comprehensive global content; 63% want better integration between TMCs and OBTs for improved service continuity.
● Travel and meetings programs are disconnected: 80% are either siloed or only partially integrated, resulting in lost opportunities for savings and visibility.
● Manual expense processes persist: 55% want automated receipt capture; 48% cite missing receipts and spend data as a reconciliation challenge.
