The Second BTE Strategic Travel & Expense Summit in Cape Coral, FL, exceeded expectations from buyers and suppliers alike. The two-day event, which took place Jan. 14-16, facilitated candid, buyer-led conversations and delivered practical education on pressing issues in managed travel. As Business Travel Executive’s Group Publisher Jerry Allison told the crowd, “You’re the buyers – you drive the conversation today.”
With original program content designed by Jennifer Steinke, Director Travel, Meetings & Fleet at Moderna, and event experience by Wendy Palmer, Senior Manager, Travel and Meetings, Moderna, 50-plus attendees – travel buyers, including the BTE Think Tank, and industry-leading sponsors – gathered for three days of brainstorming, interactive collaboration and insightful conversations.
Set within the luxurious Westin Cape Coral Resort at Marina Village, the BTE Summit provided excellent opportunities for networking – without the high stakes pressure. From enjoying dinner on the Lawn whilst listening to the melodies of Todd Carey and his band, to a fabulous meal at High Tide Social amidst glowing heat lamps against a rare January chill, it was hard not to make connections.
Transparency & Trust
Day One of the Summit delivered exactly what the event was built for: honest, buyer-led conversations focused on real challenges, real solutions and real partnerships. Across every session, several key themes consistently emerged.
Trust – between buyers, TMCs, suppliers, and technology partners – surfaced as the most critical issue facing the industry today. Buyers voiced growing frustration with opaque pricing, unclear or limited content access, and misaligned goals. Some pointed out friction points such as sales assurances from suppliers that simply overpromise and under-deliver, prompting deeper conversations about the future of distribution and service models.
The message was clear: trust cannot be assumed or marketed – it must be earned through “transparent collaboration.” But how is this transparency achieved? One way is via “intentional alignment” in the purchasing process: Having all the key stakeholders together – including procurement, travel and finance – in the same room at the same time.
Travel providers suggested that buyers who integrate their suppliers into purchase decisions add value to the process. Instead of issuing an RFP and “hoping for the best,” collaboration and clarity around expectations should come first. Also, access to principal team members within the buyer’s organization should be included earlier in the relationship-building process, not later.
Buyers, It’s Time to Level Up
Another theme that naturally progressed from the topic of trust was the evolving role of the buyer. Today’s travel buyers are operating in a far more complex environment, and are now being called to own their programs more deliberately and drive for what they need from travel management companies and suppliers – including defining success, setting clear expectations, and paying attention to detail in contracts, SLAs, and RFPs. A refrain repeated throughout the event: If one TMC can’t deliver, find one that can.
At the same time, suppliers urged buyers to engage them as strategic partners and leverage them as consultants, and not just treat them as vendors. When buyers articulate their needs clearly from the outset, suppliers can respond honestly about what they can – and cannot – deliver.
Leading with this kind of clarity and transparency allows true strategic partnerships to emerge. While some suppliers make impressive promise, buyers find that often the service levels are just not deliverable. Most buyers agreed travelers aren’t motivated by loyalty programs. They want a better travel experience – minimizing flight delays or cancellations, or offering hotel vouchers if there are disruptions. As one buyer put it, “They want real support when things go wrong.”
In a future model, instead of buyers asking suppliers for substantial discounts, smarter negotiating points could include day-of-travel features, such as early boarding privileges, preferred seating options, lounge access and reserved overhead space. Rebates or exploring revenue sharing were also offered as potential alternatives.
Investing in strategic partnerships now means reducing misalignment later in the relationship. The buyer’s ability to advocate for meaningful traveler outcomes is integral to this process.
AI: Already in Motion
When suppliers were asked how they could tangibly improve the traveler experience, one thing became obvious: technology – and AI in particular – is the enabler. In fact, Day One of the Summit clearly showed that AI is no longer at the experimental stage in travel programs; it’s alive and running.
So, the question for buyers becomes, who are the TMC’s that are embracing new AI technologies? Throughout the conversations, AI was positioned not as a replacement for human judgment, but as a feature embedded into workflows – a force multiplier that reduces manual work and allows teams and agents to focus on higher-value activities.
However, AI is only as strong as the data behind it. Buyers are already overwhelmed with data and choices, so simply adding more technology or more options doesn’t help. In fact, it can make decision-making harder. Thus, it’s important to vet a TMC by asking what kind of reporting and data capabilities it has.
Advice to travel buyers from the various technology suppliers in the room was clear and simple: Invest in data quality and governance before automation, and don’t rush to check the AI box, but rather build confidence slowly. It’s important to understand that agentic AI solutions will eventually take over; that’s where future investments need to be directed.
A hands-on challenge brought all this AI theory into practice. In an AI “game,” buyer and supplier teams tackled an issue facing managed travel. Each team was tasked with using AI to help solve real travel and meetings challenges, like how to be early adopters of technological change or how to define the practical evolution of a TMC. In the exercise, participants had to clarify what stays human vs. automated, and align buyer expectations with operational reality.
What the exercise displayed was how crucial AI could be in a sea of massive, and often conflicting, information. AI is not just about providing more options. It’s about identifying the best option. The advice from technology providers is that AI should be embedded as a feature, not positioned as a standalone solution. At the end of the day, success won’t belong to the buyers who adopt AI first, but to those who adopt it with the most intentionality.
Is Your TMC Broken?
The second day of the conference continued with conversations around trust, turning the lens to pricing, distribution and visibility into content. There was broad agreement that the traditional TMC pricing and service model is broken, with particular attention to outdated transaction fees. It’s a model that no longer works in today’s TMC environment.
The issue centered on the question of why a traveler who books online or requires minimal touch should pay the same fee as one who needs full agent support. Transaction fees, it was observed, should surface only when travelers fall out of policy – or require higher levels of service.
Buyers were also deeply concerned about content fragmentation, airline incentives that bypass managed programs, online booking tool manipulation and restricted visibility. What buyers agreed they were tired of hearing from their employees was, “I can find it somewhere else cheaper.”
While some TMCs are willing to adopt a more open book policy, opaque pricing will continue to call into question the transparency corporate travel programs are asking for. For their part, suppliers acknowledged that providing full content is complex, but agreed that, over time, clear communication and proof (not promises) are the only path forward.
Time for Difficult Truths
Beyond travel operations, Day Two also opened the space to address the sobering reality of human trafficking in the travel industry. Now the world’s second-largest illegal industry – valued at an estimated $236 billion – human trafficking disproportionately impacts women and children. Four out of five victims are female, with an estimated 26.7 million victims worldwide each year, with the US reportedly constituting the largest consumer market for this trade.
Unfortunately, it is the travel industry’s planes and trains and even rental vehicles that are being utilized for transporting innocent children, and it is hotels, meetings and events that are too often crime scenes. In this way, “involuntary complicity” is what the industry is perpetuating. However, the message delivered by Kerin McKinnon, VP of Business Development at CTM, was inspiring: We must claim responsibility through advocacy, education, awareness and training.
RIP to the RFP
The constant see-saw of buyer-supplier negotiations also surfaced in other segments of the conference, such as new airline sourcing tactics (“from market share to modern retailing”), new distribution channels and their challenges, in the inseparability of travel and meetings, and in saying goodbye to the outdated, formal hotel RFP process.
Participants agreed that RFPs are a painful, brutal process, which needs to change. Moving to multiyear agreements (rather than year after year), providing addendums instead of attempting full rewrites, and bringing the stakeholders to the table (especially revenue management) are important considerations for the future. For example, changing the RFP to limit the questions based on the specific provider is a case in point. Not every provider needs to answer 700 questions. Instead, creating surveys to filter the process down will create efficiency and save time.
In all of these sessions, key takeaways included four themes that dominated the candid and often direct dialogue. First, trust is key. In this sense, the “Travel & Expense” in the T&E BTE Summit could have well been renamed “Trust & Engagement.” Because ultimately, strategic partnerships in the managed travel space will only be as strong as the trust that goes into them.
Second, AI is here and now, and rapidly becoming table stakes for travel programs. But AI is only as reliable as the data behind it. Most important, Summit participants agreed that AI does not eliminate the human element, but rather can enhance decision making, analysis and smarter travel.
Another key theme is the value of managed travel programs, as buyers increasingly take ownership of their programs, engaging with TMCs and the spectrum of travel providers to lead with clarity and transparency. And finally, much discussion was given to the shift in focus away from the traditional transactional model and away from the micro-level, and toward a future state of corporate travel management, where the bigger picture is maximizing value across the total relationship.
Look Forward to 2027
With that future in mind, the BTE T&E Summit team is already in the planning stages for next year’s event. Relying on insights and feedback from prior Summit events, the program will evolve to include new features while preserving the interactive, intimate, invitation-only experience.
Next year’s event is scheduled to return to the Cape Coral Westin on Jan. 13-15, 2027. Mark your calendars now.
In addition, the themes and issues raised in these critical buyer-led conversations will continue to inform and shape the content in the pages of Business Travel Executive throughout the year. And there are other plans in the works to expand and enhance opportunities for corporate travel decision makers to network, brainstorm and collaborate on solutions to today’s hot topics and disruptive challenges.
