Having spent more than 15 years working across the business travel industry, spanning TMCs, technology strategy and global partnerships, I have seen the role of the TMC evolve significantly.
What clients expect from a TMC today goes far beyond booking and servicing. They expect strong technology, access to the right content, consistent delivery across markets and, increasingly, confidence that their travellers will be supported when disruption happens.
Disruption is no longer an exceptional event. It is becoming a normal part of business travel.
Geopolitical instability, extreme weather, aviation fragility, health emergencies and regulatory changes are increasingly overlapping and amplifying one another. At the same time, the volume of available information has grown exponentially. Social media, disinformation and AI-generated content can make it harder to distinguish what is credible, relevant and actionable.
In this environment, speed matters. But speed without context and accuracy is not enough.
The challenge for the industry is understanding what is happening, identifying who may be affected and translating complex information into a clear, practical response.
Increasingly, that requires the right combination of technology, expertise and partnership.
Risk is becoming part of the TMC proposition
Travel risk has traditionally been viewed through the lens of destination: Where is the traveller going? What is the risk level? What information do they need before departure? Those questions remain important. But the role of risk within business travel has expanded significantly.
Compliance requirements are becoming more stringent, while organisations are placing greater emphasis on formal risk assessment, risk scoring and documented decision-making. Risk is increasingly considered not only once a trip has been booked, but as part of the wider travel approval and procurement process.
For travel managers and procurement teams, questions are becoming more detailed: What is the risk associated with a destination or journey? How is that risk assessed and scored? What information supports a travel approval decision? How quickly can risk levels change? Can potentially affected travellers be identified?
This means risk is moving closer to the centre of the corporate travel programme.
It is no longer simply a report or alert sitting alongside the travel experience. Increasingly, risk intelligence can inform whether travel should take place, how it should be managed and what support may be required before, during and after the journey.
The nature of disruption has also changed.
An event in one location can quickly affect travellers elsewhere through airline networks, airport closures, infrastructure, suppliers and onward connections. A geopolitical event can become an aviation disruption. Extreme weather can affect infrastructure and hotel availability.
We saw this clearly during the escalation in the Middle East earlier this year. Following the US and Israeli strikes on Iran on 28 February, airspace closures spread across much of the region, affecting major hubs and key routes between Europe and Asia. Airlines cancelled, diverted and rerouted flights, creating significant knock-on disruption for travellers far beyond the countries directly involved.
For TMCs, understanding that wider impact is increasingly important.
The question is no longer simply: “What is happening at the destination?”
It is also: “What does this mean for our travellers, their journeys and the decisions we may need to make next?“
That is where risk intelligence becomes valuable, not because TMCs need more information, but because they need the right information, with context, at the right time.
The role of TMCs is becoming even more important
Corporate buyers still care about cost, service, content and booking technology. But traveller support during disruption is becoming a much more visible part of the overall value proposition.
Clients are asking:
– How will you identify travellers who may be affected?
– How quickly can you communicate with them?
– What happens if the situation changes while someone is travelling?
– What support can you provide when normal travel plans are no longer possible?
Duty of care, risk intelligence, traveller tracking and emergency support are increasingly appearing in RFPs and client conversations.
I don’t see this simply as another requirement being added to the TMC checklist. I see it as an opportunity to demonstrate the value of the TMC at a moment when clients need it most.
When travel is running smoothly, the TMC can be almost invisible. When something goes wrong, the relationship becomes much more visible.
A traveller may eventually arrive home safely after a major disruption. But if they spent 24 or 36 hours without clear information, practical guidance or confidence that someone was supporting them, the experience will still have felt like a failure.
Duty of care is not just about keeping people safe. It is also about keeping people informed, supported and confident when plans change.
The power of the partnership ecosystem
One of the strongest lessons from my experience in partnerships is that great solutions come from knowing what to build, what to own and where specialist expertise can add value.
Proprietary technology, intellectual property and control can be fundamental to a company’s competitive advantage. But no organisation needs to be an expert in every component of the travel ecosystem.
The strongest propositions often combine proprietary capabilities with specialist partners who bring depth, expertise, data or technology that would be difficult to replicate internally.
Business travel has always operated this way. TMCs work alongside airlines, hotels, ground transportation providers, payment companies, technology platforms, insurers, risk intelligence providers and many other specialists.
Each brings different expertise. The opportunity is in connecting those capabilities effectively.
This is particularly true when it comes to travel risk. TMCs bring the traveller relationship, servicing expertise and operational context. Risk intelligence providers bring specialist insight, analysis and global coverage. Technology connects those capabilities and helps make them actionable.
The value is created at the intersection.
At Riskline, this is something I see every day through our work with TMC partners. Our role is not simply to provide another source of information. It is to help make risk intelligence useful within the environments where TMC teams already work.
The closer those capabilities are connected, the less time teams need to spend searching for information or piecing together different sources and the more time they can spend making decisions and supporting their clients.
That is what good partnerships should achieve.
More information does not necessarily mean better support
There is a temptation to measure risk capability by the volume of information available or the speed at which an alert can be sent.
But more information does not automatically lead to better decisions.
During a major disruption, travel teams may already be dealing with airline updates, news coverage, government advisories, supplier communications and social media. Adding more alerts without prioritisation can simply create more noise.
The important questions are:
Who could be affected?
How significant is the incident?
Is it escalating?
What could the impact be on travel?
Does anyone need to act now?
The value of reliable risk intelligence is not simply knowing that something has happened. It is understanding what it means, who it could affect and what action may be appropriate.
Technology can help deliver that information quickly and consistently.
But context remains critical.
Technology enables the relationship; it doesn’t replace it
Technology has transformed business travel and will continue to do so.
Automation can process enormous volumes of data, trigger communications and help teams react far faster than they could manually. However, disruption also demonstrates why human expertise remains so important.
An automated notification might tell a traveller that their flight has been cancelled or that conditions at their destination have changed. It cannot always answer the question that matters most:
“What should I do next?”
That is where technology, intelligence and experienced travel professionals need to work together.
Good technology provides situational awareness and removes unnecessary manual work. Good intelligence provides context. Experienced people bring judgement, empathy and understanding of the client and traveller.
The strongest outcome comes from all three working together.
Building resilience together
TMCs cannot prevent geopolitical crises, stop severe weather or control when an airport closes.
Neither can their technology partners, airlines, insurers or risk intelligence providers.
But each part of the ecosystem can contribute something different to how the industry prepares and responds.
Clients do not expect a disruption-free travel programme. They understand that many events are outside anyone’s control. What they do expect is visibility, communication and confidence that their travel partners understand what is happening and are prepared to respond.
Resilience is therefore becoming part of the service proposition.
Building resilience does not necessarily mean creating more systems, processes or technology. Often, it comes down to getting the fundamentals right:
– Trusted partnerships
– Reliable intelligence
– Connected technology
– Clear accountability
– Effective communication
– Well-defined response processes
– Regular testing and learning
Every disruption also provides an opportunity to learn. What worked? Where was there friction? Was the right information available quickly enough? Did the right people know what to do?
Those lessons should feed back into the way the ecosystem operates. This is one of the reasons I believe so strongly in partnerships.
Being an ambassador for the business travel industry is not simply about representing one company or one technology. It is about connecting people, expertise and ideas across the ecosystem and helping turn them into better outcomes for travellers and clients.
For Riskline, our role is to provide trusted risk intelligence and work alongside our partners to make that intelligence useful within their services and workflows.
For TMCs, it is about bringing that capability together with their technology, people, client relationships and servicing expertise.
Partnership does not mean giving up control. It means knowing where collaboration creates greater value.
The strongest organisations will continue to own what differentiates them, while bringing together the specialist capabilities they need to deliver more for their customers.
That is ultimately what resilience is about.
Knowing what you do best, connecting it with the right expertise and creating a stronger experience for the traveller when it matters most.
The future of business travel will be built through collaboration by organisations that understand their strengths, trust the right partners and connect those strengths to create better outcomes.
Disruption is here to stay. Our ability to respond to it can be stronger together.
