Introduction

Let me begin this year with a welcome back and a thank you. Thank you for continuing to subscribe.  Thank you for reading this newsletter.  Thank you to everyone who has liked or provided comments to this newsletter or subscribed to the Corporate Insights Podcast (my companion to this publication).

To be clear, this isn’t AI and I don’t have a ghost-writer.  In a world full of automation and ChatGPT (with little icons sprinkled throughout the text), I’m hoping you can appreciate the thoughtfulness of someone actually typing these words from a local coffee shop rather than a machine generating them.

Corporate Insights is now officially 18 months old, and I’m excited to celebrate this milestone! When I started writing back in August of 2024, it was simply an experiment. I wanted a place to share ideas, observations, and my perspective on the complexity of corporate travel.

It turns out more than a thousand travel professionals are looking for clear and honest conversations about an industry that never seems to slow down.

As we step into 2026, the travel environment feels anything but predictable with:

• Economic changes, political uncertainty and environmental shifts
• Shrinking budgets and growing traveler expectations
• New booking options with payment and expense integration
• Increased in-person and digital safety and security requirements
• Large acquisitions and rumors of company sales

For some people, this feels uncomfortable…and for others, an opportunity. The titans and trailblazers in our industry are turning to new technologies and new business models to reframe how they operate.  If you’ve read this far, I suspect you’re also one looking to solve complex problems.  Through Corporate Insights this year, I plan to spend more time digging into the practical challenges we all face.  Here's what I'll cover this year...

Payments & Bank Strategy

With the announcement yesterday of Brex’s $5.1B acquisition by Capital One, payments continue to be one of the biggest areas for disruption. Too many programs are still stitching together cards, invoices, and manual processes that create friction for travelers and headaches for finance teams. There are better ways to automate, control spend and reduce errors.  I’ll explore what modern payment strategies look like in practice and where the real savings show up.

Hotel Procurement

Hotel procurement is also evolving quickly. The old playbook of running an annual sourcing event and hoping for the best is dead. Data is finally giving us the ability to make smarter decisions throughout the year in real-time. Instead of relying on instinct, we can rely on insight and machines proactively helping us make decisions. That shift alone can transform a program.  I’ll share with you how some of the most progressive programs in the world are transforming their procurement practices, resulting in millions of dollars in savings.

Simple & Small Meetings

Another topic I’ll spend time on this year is the rise of simple and small meetings. While traditional conference-style gatherings still have a place, most companies are shifting toward smaller, faster, and more frequent meetings with internal teams. The spend in this category is growing fast, but remains largely unmanaged. The result is missed savings, inconsistent policies, and a poor user experience. I’ll look at how companies are using better tools to find space, manage costs, and eliminate the painful back and forth that still defines most meeting planning today.

Extended Stay

Longer stays in corporate travel continues to be an area that deserves more attention. Extended assignments, project teams, and rotating crews do not fit neatly into traditional booking tools. Yet the spending can be massive and often unmanaged. Energy, government and life science companies can all benefit from understanding more about this spend.  I’ll share how companies are rethinking lodging, comfort, and cost control for travelers who are on the road for weeks or months at a time.

Artificial Intelligence & New Booking Tools

And of course, artificial intelligence will remain front and center. AI is already influencing how we shop, book, reconcile, and analyze travel. Every TMC and OBT are promising radical changes with how AI will provide service, create value and change the pricing model.  It is not a future concept anymore…it’s here today. My goal is to separate hype from the real-world use cases that actually save time and money.

What am I missing? I want this to stay interactive. If there is a topic you want to cover or a problem you are trying to solve, send it my way. Better yet, if you know someone that could benefit from subscribing to this newsletter, send them this link:

In addition, some of the best issues we have explored came directly from subscriber comments or those I’ve spoken with on our podcast.

Speaking of the podcast...

Next week I will share highlights from a recent Corporate Insights Podcast.  If you haven’t subscribed, check it out on Spotify and Apple Music.  My recent conversation was with Dr. Vanja Bogicevic, a professor from New York University who I met through providing guest lectures last semester.  We talked about hospitality education, innovation, and how the next generation is preparing for this change in our rapidly evolving industry.

Thanks for reading and subscribing!

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