Why APAC travel programmes are being rebuilt around a new operating reality
Over the past few months, the APAC business travel conversation has shifted.
This perspective draws on a sequence of industry forums across APAC, from the GBTA Business Travel Forums in Brisbane and Perth in March, through BTN Sydney and GBTA Melbourne in April, to the GBTA APAC Conference in Singapore in May.
The conversation has moved on.
It is no longer framed as recovery or transformation. It feels more immediate.
Travel programmes are increasingly operating in a sustained state of volatility. This is less a passing phase and more the new baseline.
This reflects what leaders are already dealing with. Risk is part of the context. AI, while a key focus, still largely sits outside of the operating model. Control often breaks down after booking. And the role is stretching faster than capacity can keep up.
Risk isn’t episodic. It has settled in.
In Brisbane and Perth, conversations moved quickly past planning scenarios into practical reality. Due to the war in the Middle East, teams were relocating staff, managing disrupted routes, and relying on after-hours support to keep travellers safe and informed.
Risk is no longer something programmes prepare for. It is something they operate within.
Duty of care is embedded. Traveller tracking is continuous.
The challenge is structural. Many programmes were designed for disruption as a one-off event. The environment has changed underneath them.
”“What stood out was the clarity in the room. Travel leaders weren’t debating whether duty of care matters. They were asking whether their current setups are fit for the environment they’re now dealing with.”
- Mike Orchard
AI is gaining traction, but maturity remains limited.
Across the APAC events, AI has been a constant theme, but the tone has shifted. Less curiosity, more willingness to engage, albeit with a healthy dose of scrutiny.
According to BTN research around three quarters of programmes are using AI in some form, yet fewer than one in ten have embedded it across core workflows. But that headline flatters the reality. More than half of those “users” are only piloting or testing, and for many, “using AI” still means a chatbot drafting emails. Only around one in ten have moved past experimentation. That maturity gap defines where the market sits today and is what we see across the Travel Manager community. Moving from AI helping you respond to emails to an AI-enabled travel programme is a big step, but one worth taking.
In Sydney, the conversation focused strongly on governance around supplier’s use of AI with key buyer questions being raised:
- Where does our data sit?
- Who has access to it?
- If we change supplier, can we take it with us?
In Perth, one example brought this into sharp focus. One speaker, a procurement-focused travel manager, shared how supplier contracting processes were cut from six weeks to thirty minutes once AI was embedded in the procurement workflow.
He also pointed to a clear tension. In an SAP Concur study, 88% of business travellers said they would be comfortable using AI powered automation in T&E, yet programme reality lags well behind that appetite. BTN’s 2026 research shows that very few travel programmes use AI in a genuinely strategic role.
AI is no longer peripheral. It is shaping how programmes operate.
”“The AI conversation has moved on quickly. The question now is not whether to use it, but how to govern it, how to evaluate partners who rely on it, and how to explain its role to travellers in a way that builds confidence.”
- Mike Orchard
Booking is no longer the hard part
A consistent theme, particularly in Melbourne and Singapore, is where control breaks down.
For many programmes, booking looks relatively well managed. The pressure sits after.
- payments and reconciliation
- expense and invoicing
- unused credits
- meetings spend
- post-trip visibility
These are not new issues. What has changed is their impact.
In Singapore, it was clear that while most travellers have access to a corporate card, consistent usage is far from guaranteed. Many still pay out of pocket.
Individually, these are inefficiencies. Together, they create blind spots.
In a volatile environment, those blind spots become operational risks. Programmes are not losing control at booking. They are losing it in everything that follows.
Trust is becoming structural
Across Sydney panels and Singapore roundtables, trust surfaced repeatedly, sometimes explicitly, often just beneath the discussion.
There is trust from travellers, especially when plans change. Trust in suppliers as automation becomes less visible. And trust in policies that need to hold under pressure.
The pattern in traveller experience is consistent. Satisfaction peaks at booking, then drops during travel and after, where friction sits.
We see this directly in our own client data at Festive Road. We regularly run “Voice of Customer” exercises to help clients’ gauge traveller, arranger and stakeholder satisfaction with the travel programme across all stages of the business trip, and across all participating clients, the data shows a 32% drop in satisfaction from the plan and book stages to the on-trip and post-trip stages of the journey.
This is reshaping how policy is approached. Less as a static document, more as something embedded in systems and workflows.
”“The future of travel policy isn’t a forty-page document at all. It’s embedded in our technology, our communications and the moments that matter on a trip.”
- Mike Orchard
Trust is built in those moments.
The brief has expanded. The capacity hasn’t
By the time the discussion reached Singapore, the scope had clearly widened.
Travel now sits across finance, HR, risk, procurement, and sustainability. It is increasingly seen as part of growth and resilience.
But the operating reality has not caught up.
Only a small proportion of programmes have a clearly defined purpose. Many leaders are still spending most of their time firefighting.
The sentiment reflects that pressure. Almost all expect the year ahead to be harder, around a third struggle to demonstrate ROI on business travel, and a meaningful share are reconsidering their long-term place in the function.
The role is moving upward, towards strategy and impact. The capacity to operate at that level is not always there.
A market adjusting to what is already here
Across these conversations, one thing stands out. There is little appetite for big transformation narratives.
The focus is practical. Less about what comes next, more about what holds up in the current environment.
This is not an industry waiting for change. It is already adjusting to it.
Which leaves a simple question:
Are your programme’s systems, data and partnerships strong enough for the environment you are already operating in?
If these patterns are starting to show up in your programme, that’s usually where the conversation begins.
