Corporate travel is rapidly rebounding across companies of all sizes, and it looks different compared to pre-pandemic managed travel. The profiles of business travelers, why they are traveling, and how they are traveling are all evolving from previous patterns. Also changing are how corporate travelers are booking travel, paying for travel and reconciling expenses.

As rebounding business travel continues to reshape managed travel, leading corporate travel decision-makers and hoteliers are trialing and reviewing new approaches and strategies to better align demand, supply and budgets.

Planners looking to book short-term, smaller meetings this year may need to employ creative, new strategies as election-related events, international sporting events, and the resurgence of major conventions have already claimed space and dates in key markets.

Against a backdrop of the rapid return of in-person meetings and events over the past two years, planners who are sourcing and contracting future programs are facing an array of complex issues.

As the 2024 hotel RFP season gets underway, corporate travel buyers are grappling with a number of internal and external uncertainties. Many are rightsizing their programs, a process that is reshaping their partnerships with hotel suppliers, and considering new hotel pricing structures.

As demand for meetings and events picks up in an economic environment characterized by steep price increases, meeting planners are rising to the challenge by applying a combination of skill, strategy and, most important of all, creative out-of-the-box thinking.  

It will be another challenging year ahead for corporate travel—meetings are back, but so are high prices. As corporations juggle their sustainability goals with duty of care and rising budgets, they seek better tools to make smart decisions. But learning to trust and understand the data must come first.