Part 5. SME Is Hungry for Innovation, with Caveats

BTN’s 2025 SME Travel Management Report Part 4. discussed in part the fact that small and midsize travel program use, on average, fewer niche technologies than their larger counterparts to serve their programs. They are…

• 20 percent less likely than the market average to have a travel app
• 40 percent less likely than the market average to engage traveler tracking
• 40 percent less likely than the market average to use air reshopping
• 50 percent less likely than the market average to use hotel reshopping
• 33 percent less like than the market average to have a meetings management tool

(Check out the broader market stats in the BTN Intelligence State of the Industry Report)

Perhaps it is no surprise, then, that small and midsize travel program managers are hungry for more technology to serve their programs, and they reported to BTN that their organizations were open to implementing new travel tech as well. 

A full 50 percent of SME travel buyers said their organizations were “extremely” or “very” open to new tech implementations, and the average among all SME companies responding to BTN’s survey was a 3.77 on a scale of 1 to 5, where 5 was “extremely” open. There were a couple of caveats to that openness, however. 

SMEs want their tech providers to be established industry players. Less than 20 percent were “extremely” or “very” open to working with startup companies in the industry. And on the same scale of 1 to 5, the average willingness to work with startups fell to 2.84—below the middle band. 

Additionally, less than 20 percent of SME program respondents said they were currently experimenting with artificial intelligence solutions for their programs. That means SME programs are about 40 percent less likely to be engaging with AI than the industry average program. Moreover, they are more wary of their suppliers use of AI to serve their travel programs. On the 1 to 5 scale, SMEs again fell below the middle band in terms of their comfort levels with AI at 2.97. 

Looking at travel programs across all spend levels in BTN’s State of the Industry Report, that comfort level hit a little higher at 3.02.

Where Do SME Travel Programs Need Innovation Most?

Asked in BTN’s 2025 SME Travel Management survey where they most needed industry innovation to address their challenges, respondents listed the following: NDC, NDC, NDC.

There were other responses, of course, but those three letters rose very significantly to the top of the buyers’ list of concerns.

They recognized, however, the challenges with distributing, exposing, booking and servicing New Distribution Capability content were not limited to their travel management company partners, necessarily.

“We still can’t get content that is out on direct websites into my booking tool so we can access it,” wrote one buyer respondent to the BTN survey. “We have had access to NDC fares in our booking tool for a year at this point, but there are still needed improvements for 3rd party booking tools and [working with] NDC fare tickets,” wrote another. “We’re closely observing how NDC is working out since we implemented it for two airlines at the beginning of the year,” wrote a third. These were the more detailed responses from the survey, most listed their challenge straight up as “NDC,” which reads like a dead-end of frustration.

AmTrav CEO Jeff Klee, whose company has direct connected to seven airline NDC content feeds, sees the industry progress on this front, but underscores that functionality across different NDC connections still varies—and the industry is still working out how best to integrate with airline content. He used his own company, which was acquired by well-funded startup TravelPerk last year, as an example of how different TMCs are navigating NDC waters.

“AmTrav has built a lot of direct connects to airlines. We think they are great. We know they offer considerable value to customers over a GDS connection [to NDC]. I think we have seven connections now, but that’s it—because, you know, they’re intensive to do,” he said.  “Conversely, TravelPerk has taken a different approach where they do lots of NDC—they have like 20-plus carriers—but they’re using aggregators, and I include [the] GDS as an aggregator. I think by combining the two strategies where we take the airlines and airline groups that are most important to us, we direct connect. But then we also have a solution for the long tail so we can be offering NDC content globally.”

Other companies have likewise gone with a direct connect NDC strategy. Of particular note is Spotnana since it is now powering Steve Singh’s new midmarket TMC venture Direct Travel but also has provided tech stacks for midmarket player JTB Travel’s new Teal and also for specialist TMC Goodwings, Solutions Travel and an innovation “incubator” program within CWT.

Asked if he thought the industry would come to the same conclusion, where each TMC would take their top airlines via direct connect NDC and access the longer tail via aggregators, Klee said, “Yes, I really do, because you need the best functionality where you have the most volume.”

Booking Tools, Booking Tools

SME travel programs are keen to innovate, but they need practical solutions and booking tools were another pain point where BTN survey respondents said the industry needed to supply more investment.

“Our OBT and technology are not agile,” said one buyer in the survey. “Support for our OBT has really suffered,” said another. “Online booking tool issues,” a third buyer said more generally, and the proverbial, “Our travelers are finding everything cheaper online.”  Several specifically noted that NDC content was not very well configured within their OBT.  

How these booking tools present and handle seat selection, access to status entitlements, exchanges and refunds for both EDIFACT and NDC content is shaping up to be a differentiator. Per Klee’s comments direct connecting NDC content, so far, has offered the most functionality.

But booking tools aren’t all about delivering NDC content—at least not exactly. One survey respondent actually pointed out that booking had become confusing. “Sometimes travelers think the enriched content and choices can be overwhelming.”

That comment reflects a long-standing issue in corporate travel, according to Klee, especially for the SME market—and at least partially explains why the majority of it is still unmanaged. While company controls, data capture and reporting have been great for companies through their OBTs and travel management partners, the traveler experience, he said, is not well supported.

“While…maybe there would be aspects of a TMC offering that appeals to [SMEs] … when they see what they would have to do to get that benefit—like the clunky booking tools and, frankly, the horrific process that your travelers would have to go through versus what they are used to doing when they go to supplier site—it’s a game stopper. SMEs don’t want to inflict that on their travelers,” he said.

“I don’t think this gets talked about enough, but I think we in the TMC space have to acknowledge and confront the fact that we have provided really great value at the company level, but in many cases we ask travelers to sacrifice their own experiences to deliver that value.”

That is changing to some extent and booking tools have been a focus of that investment in traveler experience.

AmTrav has long had its self-titled booking tool. Spotnana has its own booking tool, Navan and TravelPerk largely started as mobile booking tools and more TMCs are pushing proprietary booking tools as the first option to clients, particularly SMEs. Amex GBT now has Egencia and Neo that specifically serve the SME market. FCM has Melon through its Corporate Traveler brand; CTM has Lightning.

Third party booking tools are also making changes. Certainly Concur’s T2 continues to roll out its new booking experience and still is transitioning clients to the new platform. The company has said the rollouts are going well; buyer reports to BTN have been mixed. Cytric, Atriis and Serko’s Zeno are all booking tools that have seen upgrades to make them more intuitive for travelers.

AI – Get Used to the Idea

Whether SME travel managers are ready for artificial intelligence or not—and the data suggests they really don’t think they are—it’s coming.

Aside from NDC content integration into booking tools, many of the enhancements the industry is about to see in the booking space will happen with AI. Indeed, a layer of AI over the booking interface, is poised to transform how the next generation of business travelers may even think about what a booking tool is. Those complexities caused by too many NDC options and enriched data? AI can probably make that disappear.

Cytric has integrated booking functionality into Microsoft Teams. Amadeus introduced Cytric Easy a couple of years ago, enabling natural language queries into the Teams chat to generate booking options, without having to present complex decision trees. Navan launched Ava in 2023 to serve as a traveler’s co-pilot. AmexGBT just enhanced its traveler-facing AI assistant for Egencia. GBT claims it can resolve about 30 percent of inquiries without human intervention.

Steve Singh’s investment in Otto an AI travel assistant created by former Egencia executive Michael Gulmann is targeted mainly to the unmanaged business travel market—i.e. there is limited travel policy interference—but it can recommend itinerary options and divert to Spotnana to book them.

BTN Innovation Face-Off winner Skylink is a third-party option. At least one buyer (in the large market, albeit) has reported to BTN that they are considering overlaying Concur with Skylink’s large language model AI to build dynamic booking histories for travelers and create personalized, intuitive booking experiences, powered by natural language requests.

Travel Managers Need AI, Too

But AI won’t just be for booking tools and traveler assistants, AI capabilities can support the work of managing the travel program as well. How SME travel managers use AI as a force multiplier may be the next horizon in their quest to improve their programs.

Agencies are working with AI to build better data reporting environments that offer insights akin to consulting services. Depending on how they are integrated with booking tools and other tech platforms, some providers can cascade AI-driven recommendations, if approved by a human, into policies or processes.

Sourcing platforms also are incorporating big data, machine learning and AI to short-circuit painful RFP processes that bog down the strategic work of managing and servicing business travelers.  

As SME travel managers look for additional resources to streamline their day-to-day responsibilities and look for ways to cut hard costs from their program as well as find program optimization opportunities in their data, they shouldn’t overlook that possibilities that AI-driven agency services and data analytics can offer them.