Travel Industry Summit: A Moment of Change for the Industry

Our third annual SAP Concur Travel Industry Summit (TIS) is officially in the books!  

On June 9, travel industry professionals and experts virtually convened to define the future of travel. We heard from industry trailblazers and travel executives during thought-provoking presentations and engaging panels, covering important and timely topics such as sustainability, strengthening the integrated travel ecosystem, and better understanding the needs and mindsets of today’s business travelers. We also unveiled initial findings from our fourth annual global business travel survey. 

Businesses face continued uncertainty around the ongoing return to offices and the pandemic-associated evolution of business travel. Charlie Sultan, President of Concur Travel, underscored the opportunity in this moment to lead. As Charlie noted, this is “your moment to rebuild business travel in a way that gives you more control, more visibility, more built-in safety, and better experiences for your travelers. More confidence and clarity in your travel spending and the ROI it's delivering. It's your moment to build flexibility into your program and sustainability into your policies.” 

TIS sessions addressed topics ranging from creating a sustainability action plan, to real-world examples of—and lessons from—fraudulent behavior, to a compelling hands-on experience with Unanimous AI’s Swarm platform. Insights shared during “The Balancing Act: One Travel Program with Many Priorities” were especially timely and relevant for travel managers as business travel volume increases. For instance, panelists suggested identifying your travel program’s many priorities, then determining where some may overlap to help speed things up. If one priority is controlling costs and another is sustainability, as an example, there may be a way to double up efforts to address both priorities at once. During “Exploring Impactful Trends in Travel,” Deloitte’s Oren Geshuri underscored the changing dynamic between employers and employees and how travel policy has become a point of negotiation for new hires. These are just a couple of the constructive and interesting conversations that took place during the event—all of which can be viewed on demand through the end of June. 

We also unveiled high-level findings from our fourth annual global business travel survey during TIS. Our survey underscores that unless employers globally address employee demands for flexibility, health, and safety while traveling for business, their ability to retain key talent remains at risk. The key findings from this year’s survey include: 

• Sixty-one percent of business travelers report that their current travel schedules are falling short of their expectations, and 82% of business travelers report their company is returning to pre-pandemic levels but with a “more travel on fewer shoulders” approach. 
• Nearly a quarter of business travelers who are not traveling at their ideal travel frequency (23%) say they’ll look for a new position if their travel schedule doesn’t improve.  
• At the same time, aware of the labor market, travelers aren’t willing to accept a position that requires more travel without added perks: 92% say they’d need additional salary, benefits, or travel flexibility to take a position with more travel. 
• On that note, flexibility remains a priority in 2022: 91% consider some flexible travel and booking options as essential for their company to allow to protect their health and safety when they travel for business—compared to 89% in 2021.  
• Meanwhile, travel managers are feeling the pressure: All surveyed travel managers (100%) expect their role to be more challenging in the next 12 months compared to last year, with nearly half (49%) reporting that the stress is coming from above, through increasing pressure from senior leadership to demonstrate the ROI of their role. 

Read New Global Survey Considers Business Travel’s Talent Implications and watch our video for additional information from this year’s survey, and stay tuned for the reveal of the full report in the coming weeks. 

We hosted the first TIS in 2020 to bring the travel sector together to help address the challenges our community faced at the start of the pandemic. As the landscape continues to change, TIS remains an essential moment to come together, challenge the status quo of travel, and explore new ways of thinking. Thank you for sharing this moment with us. 

If you missed this year’s event or you’d like to revisit a particular discussion, register or login to access on-demand content through June 30. We hope to see you at TIS in 2023! 

The SAP Concur global business traveler survey was conducted by Wakefield Research between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 3,850 business travelers, defined as those who traveled for business three-plus times in the past 24 months, in 25 markets: U.S., Canada, Brazil, Mexico, LAC (Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Argentina), UK, France, Germany, ANZ region (Australia and New Zealand), SEA region (Singapore and Malaysia), China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Japan, India, Korea, Italy, Spain, Dubai, Benelux (Belgium, Netherlands, and Luxembourg), South Africa, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking. 

The SAP Concur global travel manager survey was conducted by Wakefield Research between April 28 and May 23, 2022, among 700 travel managers, defined as those who direct or administer travel programs for businesses, across seven markets: France, Germany, Hong Kong, Mexico, SEA Countries (Malaysia and Singapore), UK, and U.S. Data has been weighted to facilitate tracking.