Traditionally, the behind-the-scenes details of corporate meetings have fallen into one of two camps: Most major corporate events get handled by dedicated meeting planners and destination management companies (DMCs) from start to finish, including booking and payment processes. And in most cases, that remains a proven strategy.
The second category, the simpler meeting, has traditionally been the domain of people like administrative assistants or sales leaders, who only occasionally manage gatherings for specific groups and may be less familiar with the complexities of negotiating and planning meetings.
However, with the growing trend toward a distributed workforce, employees are gravitating to team meetings, smaller group and regional meetings, bringing new levels of involvement by travel managers across a wider array of corporate events. That includes not just the need for greater understanding of the dynamics of smaller meetings and events, but also an evolving approach to booking and paying for them.
“With teams spread out and remote work being the norm, smaller, local meetups are way more common now,” says Duke Chung, CEO and co-founder of TravelBank, which U.S. Bank acquired earlier this decade. “Travel buyers and meeting planners are stepping in more often, even for the smaller stuff, just to keep things consistent and cost-effective.”
Charlotte Leo, director of meetings management solution design for BCD Meetings and Events, is among those seeing meetings fall more frequently under the remit of travel buyers. She attributes this largely to the maturity and understanding of the benefits of having strategic meetings programs, as well as the expansion of travel programs to include meetings management as they also grow in maturity.
“Many meetings programs are also being expanded to include smaller meetings, due to the large accumulated spend in this category and the increased interest of organizations in implementing self-service technologies for sourcing smaller and simpler programs,” Leo notes. In a recent account survey, BCD found that almost 40 percent of customers were assessing small meetings technologies to implement in 2025/2026.
Closer cooperation is also a part of the picture. For their part, hotels are experiencing substantial progress in relationships with booking entities.
“We’re seeing a profound shift in the way meetings and events are booked and paid for,” says Frank Passanante, senior vice president, global head of sales and HRCC, Hilton. “And much of that transformation is being driven by closer collaboration between meeting planners and hotel partners. As the ability to work from anywhere has reshaped how teams collaborate, we’ve seen a surge in group bookings, signaling a rise in the number of smaller meetings and off-site team gatherings, along with increased interest in smaller room blocks,” Passananate explains.
Hilton’s 2025 Trends Report found that four in five global respondents cited an improved team culture due to in-person work meetings and events, with more than 62 percent of attendees indicating they feel more at ease speaking at smaller meetings compared to large ones. To meet this demand and simplify the booking experience for smaller groups, Hilton has expanded online events booking capabilities with packages for smaller meetings. That includes options for booking directly online up to 35 attendees for meeting or event spaces, with or without 10 to 25 guest rooms, without a separate contract or phone call. These bookings can be settled through a variety of payment options, including credit cards.
Limiting the Headache Factor
As with other elements of travel management, continued advances in technology promise to lessen the pain points that have often come with booking and paying for meetings. “This is getting a lot more streamlined with better technology,” Chung says. “Things like embedded payments and integrations with event platforms are making it easier to connect planners and suppliers directly, resulting in less paperwork, faster approvals and better visibility into spending.”
Chung explains that virtual cards are good for control and tracking, while mobile wallets can be useful for travelers who need to pay on the go or handle last-minute expenses. And automated expense tools offer an easy way to reduce friction. “It simplifies everything for the traveler not to manually reconcile expenses,” he says. At the same time, finance teams benefit from better oversight into expenses without the tedious manual work that otherwise would be required.
Leo agrees that payment solutions within the meetings and events space have long been a headache for organizations. “But as a key control mechanism for a meetings and events program, a defined payment process is a key element of consolidating the management of meetings and events at an organization within a structured meetings program framework,” she notes. “This ensures visibility of activity/spend and mitigates risk to the organization while offering other benefits.”
According to Lydie Charpin, senior vice president of corporate travel and B2B commercial card for Mastercard, two developments are transforming the way meetings are paid for. First is the integration of secure virtual card numbers into popular booking platforms. “This lets planners make instant, protected payments without leaving the booking environment,” she says. “It speeds up supplier settlement, reduces administrative steps, and ensures all booking and payment records are kept in one secure system.”
Also important is the seamless ability to match card transaction data with detailed invoice information, making reconciliation easier while supporting faster, more accurate financial reporting. Charpin notes that when a payment is made using a virtual card number, the transaction data captured can include the unique card number, the amount and the supplier details. This can then be linked directly to the corresponding invoice from the supplier, ensuring an exact match between what was booked, what was delivered and what was paid. “One of the biggest benefits of this approach is that it ultimately frees up finance teams to focus on higher-value work,” she says.
Rather than just a convenience, virtual card numbers are becoming an essential tool for managing meeting and travel costs securely, Charpin asserts. “For employees on the move, these cards can also be enabled for mobile wallets, bringing quick, contactless payment experiences to the business trip,” she says. “When those payments are embedded within an expense management system, the transaction details can flow automatically into the employee’s expense report.” Benefits include removing the need to manually enter receipts, shortening reporting cycles and making the process easier and faster for organizers as well as travelers.
Focus on Integration
The latest integrated technology solutions promise to bring more leverage into the hands of payers, according to Alexander Olsen, VP spend management and payment consulting for HRS. An example is his company’s CONNECT platform, which provides transparency and control over meetings programs while integrating procurement, instant pricing, virtual payment and VAT in a single end-to-end process.
Not only are the basics of the payment process made more efficient, but with detailed data made available in one central space, users can easily review and verify its accuracy. That can be especially welcome to travel managers who find themselves becoming more involved in providing the underpinning for successful meetings. It supports better control of spending, which in turn helps bring the greatest return on a company’s investment in an employee’s meeting attendance. For travel executives, that may include using comprehensive data to leverage better rates with hotels.
“It’s a win-win prospect,” Olsen says. Not only are efficiencies realized by those purchasing services, but the efficiency of the process also makes life better in the hotel industry. He adds that companies are now expecting integration with their meetings on additional elements such as restaurant reservations and activities for teams when they’re meeting.
“If you’re hosting a team off-site you obviously don’t want to be back in the hotel meeting room for two or three days,” Olsen noted. “You want to be able to incorporate dinners at a restaurant, or maybe you’d like to do a team building experience like one of these squid games or an escape room.” In such cases, planners will want the ability to pay for those experiences virtually.
Aligning Payment Priorities
In moving forward in the evolving business travel and expense space, Chung advises embracing digital solutions. “The product advancements over the past decade have greatly increased firms’ ability to manage spend, track ROI and help employees stay compliant,” he says. “Importantly, there’s been a lot of progress on bringing together disparate payment, expense and travel software into a single platform.” This helps businesses optimize costs, maximize productivity and improve the employee experience. Since decentralized meetings are becoming the norm, systems and policies should be ready to support that, he says.
“Find tools that embed the payment process into workflow to make the process more efficient and easier to control costs,” Chung says.
“And try to connect travel and meetings planning more closely, as it makes a big difference when everything’s aligned.”
A wise strategy prioritizes payments early in the travel planning process, Charpin says. “Getting them right can streamline operations, cut costs and strengthen compliance.” She reports that Mastercard research shows over half of business travelers want integrated booking, payment and expense systems that boost efficiency and visibility. “Virtual card numbers can do just that, especially when paired with expense tools, keeping transactions secure, traceable and tied to specific events or suppliers, reducing fraud and easing reconciliation.”
Passanante suggests taking a holistic approach when evaluating new solutions to enhance the meetings and events experience. He suggests determining if the solution simplifies or complicates the process for both you and your customers, how much training or behavioral shift will be required to adopt this new technology, and finally, whether the savings, productivity gains or traveler satisfaction outweigh the investment.
“It’s important to consider how the offering fits within your organization’s existing infrastructure,” he advises, “Whether that’s booking platforms, contract negotiation processes or payment systems.”
