ITM Inspire 2025 Recap: Unleashing a new era in business travel
After an incredible 3 days in beautiful Newport, South Wales, the Synergy team are settled back to their desks full of energy and passion after ITM’s annual spring conference #inspire.
This year’s conference delivered timely insights, big-picture perspectives, and bold discussions across business travel, aviation, technology, traveller engagement and the evolving role of travel managers.
As always, ITM’s commitment to inclusivity—highlighted through the use of sunflower lanyards—set the tone for a thoughtful and welcoming event. We sincerely thank the ITM team for their dedication and for creating a platform that continues to push our industry forward and supports the individuals within it.
As the sun sets on a blue sky fuelled few days, join us as we dive into our key takeaways from the conference, and reminisce with us as we re-live what was a meeting we certainly won’t forget in a hurry.
Global travel outlook: volatility remains but opportunities are plentiful
Andrew Lobbenberg, Head of European Transport Equity Research at Barclays set the tone for ITM Inspire with an insightful picture of the business travel sector. While geopolitical uncertainties were highlighted as an impact factor on a challenged stock market, Andrew noted both credit card and overall travel spend is on the up.
While consumer confidence remains buoyed by a resilient stock market, broader economic uncertainty and persistent aircraft shortages, Andrew noted silver linings in the growth of the premium leisure travel market driven by affluent travellers and aspirational social media content creators.
Is our industry broken? Re-imagining the commercial model
As we sifted into the late morning on day one, Festive Road’s Caroline Strachan sat down with industry experts Charlie Sultan from SAP Concur and Jim Davidson from Accelya to explore the tangled web of the travel industry.
From airlines to TMCs to aggregators, the conclusion of the session was clear: transparency and collaboration must replace outdated models. The conversation highlighted the importance of understanding the money flows across the industry in order to identify investment capabilities and resources.
While the commercial model remains largely unchanged, the experts touched on the challenges of encouraging different stakeholders to collaborate, highlighting the role of travel managers in “pushing the buttons” and facilitating this collaboration.
Engaging every generation in travel
Hosted by Katie Skitterall, Group Commercial Director at Direct ATPI and Jenny Thornton, Director of Technology solutions at Direct ATPI, this engaging breakout session focused on the challenges and opportunities of engaging different age demographics in travel programmes.
Key points included the need for personalised communication, with 30% of bookings still off-programme and 27% of the workforce now being Gen Z. The discussion highlighted the importance of understanding different communication preferences, such as the timing and tone of messages, highlighting the importance of engaging comms teams to spread their messages at the right time, in the right place and in the right tone. Examples included the effectiveness of collaboration tools in improving internal communication and promoting programme compliance.
Demystifying online booking tools—a spotlight into rail
Travel tech got its moment in a session that broke down the cost structures and purpose of OBTs like Concur. The meeting focused on demystifying OBTs and travel tech, emphasising the economics and objectives behind them. Using rail as an example, A $15 million investment in rail integration with tools like Concur was highlighted, enabling interlining across Europe, which in turn promotes increased competition, lower fares and viable flight alternatives.
This meaningful discussion then sparked the conversation around encouraging the adoption of rail travel in the industry’s quest for more sustainable travel. Thrust Carbon discussed the complexity of calculating business travel emissions and the importance of accurate data for sustainability efforts.
The takeaway was clear: the future of OBTs lies in seamless integration, data quality for AI and a sustainability-first design.
The aviation sector—what’s next?
After the aviation sector’s strong growth in recent years, Richard Tams, Founder and Director at Tailwind Advisory sat down with Colm Lacy, Chief Commercial Officer at British Airways and Lucas Martin, Senior Vice President of Sales at American Airlines to discuss their plans for the business travel market.
The executives highlighted economic uncertainty, shifting political landscapes, and loyalty programme overhauls. Yet, both carriers highlighted optimistism—especially surrounding premium and long-haul travel, which continue to outperform other segments.
The partnership between British Airways and American Airlines underscored the importance of collaboration, transparency, and data-driven strategies, making it clear that the airlines will continue to navigate geopolitical volatility in partnership.
Are TMC’s fit for the future?
This lively and insightful debate, moderated by Scott Davies, CEO at ITM, looked at the perspectives of three buyers and three TMCs to explore the role of the TMC in meeting travel buyer requirements.
The session touched on issues such as traveller wellbeing, data, sustainability and cost—as well as the TMCs role in understanding and tailoring their solutions to suit buyer requirements. The discussion debated whether TMCs should focus on service partners or hybrid models, stressing the importance of technology integration and transparency. The consensus lied on the necessity of partnerships, transparency and innovation to meet evolving traveller needs.
The final outcome of the audience poll said yes, TMC’s are fit for the future, but there’s work to be done.
The role of communications in establishing trust
The discussion, hosted by Martin Ferguson, Global Communication and Marketing Expert, Daniel Cockton, Vice President, Global Travel Services at Wood PLC and Annelies Glandorf, Global Experience Programme Manager at Shell International Ltd focused on building trust through effective communication in travel programmes. Daniel shared his experience at Wood, emphasising the importance of aligning travel with strategic objectives and improving communication to gain C-suite trust. He spoke about the importance of simplified travel processes, consolidated contact points, and engaging leaders through town halls and one-on-one meetings.
Annalies discussed leveraging tools like Viva Engage for continuous engagement and using data to influence travel behaviour. Both speakers stressed the importance of listening, responding, and delivering on promises to build credibility and trust.
Out of the box use cases for travel data
With the proliferation of travel technology and AI, this forward-thinking discussion focused on leveraging travel data beyond the travel department and was hosted by Sarah Whiting from BCD and Shelley Fletcher-Bryant from Advito. Both speakers passionately explored use cases including cost savings through contract negotiation, virtual reality for meetings and automated expense reporting.
Risk management use cases highlighted were access control, crime mapping, health and wellness monitoring and emergency response planning. Predictive time mapping was noted as a future goal, while the importance of integrated data strategies and privacy concerns were emphasised, with real-time alerts and forward-looking risk management being current practices.
Defining the value of business travel through ROI
In this interactive session, led by Paul Tilstone, Founder at Temoji, speakers explored the role of business travel in facilitating business objectives and how individuals can “supercharge” their own travel ROI to play a role in our sector’s future.
The discussion highlighted the upward battle travel managers have in justifying the necessity for travel, alongside the importance of being able to measure travel ROI from employee wellness to productivity, and environmental impact.
The conversation highlighted the positive impact investment into travel can have on both revenue and profit, while also emphasised the need for better alignment on business objectives and the importance of post-trip assessments. A research paper by Temoji was also shared and found that 25-30% of current business trips could be eliminated, potentially increasing net expected value by 26%. The session concluded with an audience exercise on calculating their own trip ROI and exploring how they can supercharge their own ROI from the ITM conference.
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