Corporate travel has been ripe for disruption for quite some time, so why is it taking so long?

Road warriors hate the tools they are compelled to use (and frequently bypass), travel managers hate the cat-and-mouse games they have to play to enforce policy on their employees and to police rates and configuration rules with their TMC partners. Suppliers hate the complexity involved in getting the right offers to the right customers. TMCs hate the goat rodeo of program leakage and shoe-horning new technology services on legacy tech platforms.

We’ve seen some innovation around the edges, but it comes in fits and starts and struggles to realize the transformative traction that truly shifts the paradigm. Is it a technology challenge, a commercial challenge, or a bit of both? Will disruption come from the travelers themselves — a new generation of road warriors that refuses to go along with the status quo? Will suppliers finally gain the upper hand over intermediaries via NDC or direct booking commercial arrangements? Will AI be the straw that breaks the back of legacy tech platforms that simply can’t keep up?

Who is leading the way, and when will we get there?

Follows:

Gilad Berenstein - host
Cara Whitehill – host
Steve Singh - guest

Go Deeper:

Hotel Chains Bet on New Ways of Selling to Corporate Travelers - Skift
Former Expedia exec’s startup uses AI to help smaller companies book travel - Techcrunch
Transforming Corporate Travel: An Open Roadmap to Fixing a Broken System – Madrona
Blockskye Ready for the Long Journey to Transformation – Business Travel News
Business Travel Would Be Booming—if Flying Weren’t So Miserable – Wall Street Journal [$]

Kurt Metzger - Derp with Kurp, episode one with Duncan Trussell