What we’re still thinking about after ProcureCon Travel 2026

Conference season is now well underway, but one event has continued to stick with me. Looking back at ProcureCon Travel 2026, the conversations weren’t just about the challenges facing managed travel—they pointed to broader shifts we’re now seeing echoed across the industry. After spending time reflecting on the discussions, one thing is clear: high-performing travel programs aren’t being built through incremental improvements. They’re being rethought from the ground up.

As Chairman for Day 1, I had the opportunity to moderate discussions, attend sessions, and continue the conversation in the hallways between them. Across those interactions, one theme emerged again and again: the industry’s biggest opportunities don’t come from optimizing individual parts of a travel program. They come from rethinking how policy, technology, traveler behavior, and data work together.

Whether the discussion centered on policy, AI, distribution, or supplier strategy, the underlying question was the same: how do we build travel programs that deliver better business outcomes because they’re designed around how people actually travel?

Rethinking the policy vs. traveler experience debate

I kicked day 1 off with a bold, intentionally controversial sounding statement, “Traveler experience shouldn’t sit on the travel manager’s priority list.” Not because it doesn’t matter, but because separating it from cost, compliance, risk, and really anything is what creates friction in the first place. That concept showed up across the event. Whether the topic was lowest logical fare, approval structures, or booking controls, the underlying challenge was the same: there’s a gap between what programs are designed to do and how travelers actually make decisions.

One insight was consistent: travelers tend to make consistent choices, even when those choices fall outside of policy, if the program doesn’t meet their needs. To me, that’s a trust issue, not a compliance or technology issue.

Programs built around rigid enforcement create friction. That friction leads to workarounds. Programs built around real behavior, with clear guardrails and better design, tend to see stronger adoption and more reliable outcomes. And panelists agreed: When travelers trust the program, they stay in it. And when they stay in it, everything else—data, visibility, and leverage—follows.

AI is sparking conversations about trust

No surprise here: AI was a major theme across sessions. What stood out is how often the discussion centered on trust. Travel buyers and suppliers alike are asking a practical question: What decisions are we comfortable having AI support today, and where do we still want human expertise involved?

Attendees saw near-term value in AI for streamlining audits and workflows, surfacing insights from large datasets, and identifying patterns that inform planning and forecasting.

But conversations became more cautious when it came to decisions requiring judgment, context, negotiation, relationship management, or traveler empathy. In those areas, human oversight remains essential.

There was also broad agreement that AI success depends on strong foundations. Clean data, standardized processes, and clear governance are prerequisites for meaningful results. As one attendee put it, applying AI to a broken process doesn’t fix it—it simply scales the problem faster. For many programs, the opportunity isn’t just adopting AI. It’s getting the fundamentals right so AI can deliver value.

Distribution is maturing

It was also interesting to see how the conversation around airline distribution has evolved. NDC discussions have shifted from the technology and offering itself to the reality of managing a multi-source environment. With content fragmented across GDS, NDC, and direct channels, the challenge is managing complexity and turning it into something usable. That’s why the conversation is moving toward the decisioning layer—the intelligence that helps programs navigate that complexity and guide better choices in real time.

What leading programs are doing differently

Across sessions, the most effective strategies weren’t about choosing between priorities—they were about integrating them. A few themes came through consistently:

• Connecting data, policy, and traveler behavior into a single system
• Designing for choice within guardrails, rather than rigid enforcement
• Reducing friction and enabling better decisions, instead of controlling every step
• Shifting from lowest logical fare to overall value, incorporating experience and outcomes

These ideas aren’t entirely new—but the urgency around them is increasing as programs become more complex and expectations continue to rise.

The biggest opportunity still ahead: hotel

One area that didn’t come up in the panels I hosted was hotel. That’s interesting, because it’s increasingly where many programs are feeling pressure: rising costs, more dynamic pricing, and higher expectations from travelers.

A few conversations touched on how supplier models are evolving beyond traditional rate negotiations, reflecting a more real-time, experience-driven approach. And in policy discussions, the same familiar tension showed up—cost controls that work on paper, but don’t always align with what travelers actually choose in practice. Taken together, it suggests hotel is becoming less of a set-it-and-forget-it category—and more of an ongoing opportunity for programs to get right.

Why “open” matters right now

Those conversations also reinforced why we’ve been investing in our open by design approach. When programs can connect content, policy, and traveler context more seamlessly, they’re not forcing compliance. They’re enabling better decisions in the moment.

And that’s where Tripsource comes into play—bridging sourcing strategy, traveler behavior, and in-the-moment decision-making into something more cohesive and responsive.

Because ultimately, the programs that stand out won’t be the ones that try to control every variable.

They’ll be the ones that rethink how everything fits together—and build something travelers actually want to use.