Two days on the stand on the hottest days of the year since 1884 in London, at Business Travel Show Europe 2026, barely gave us a quiet five minutes. A busy stand, back-to-back meetings, and plenty of familiar faces.
Thank you to everyone who came to find us at the Business Travel Show Europe
We kicked off BTS Europe the night before at the show’s favorite pub The Fox, with drinks, nibbles and England v Ghana World Cup match. It was filled with good company, great conversations but sadly no goals for England.
During the show, we started to see some common themes in both the educational sessions and the conversations we had on the stand. Here are a few that stood out.
AI has to earn its place now
The AI conversation has matured. We’ve moved from “look what it can do” to buyers wanting proof that it actually delivers value and business impact.
Business Travel News Intelligence (BTN)came armed with data based on a survey of 203 respondents, one statistic stood out: 87% of buyers expect to increase their use of AI this year. At that level, AI stops being a shiny differentiator and becomes a baseline expectation. We’re seeing the same shift across the programs we support. The question has changed from whether you have AI to what it actually does for your business.
We’ve created a guide to help you understand where AI can support you and your travelers: The Corporate Travel Buyer’s Guide to AI
The travel manager’s job is quietly changing
The same BTN Intelligence research found 76% of travel managers think AI has either barely touched their role or made them faster without making them more strategically influential.
This is where the conversation started to get real. Travel managers appreciate getting time back, but the real opportunity is how they use it. The most successful are turning that efficiency into more strategic engagement, earning a seat at the table with their CFO.
Today’s travel buyers come prepared with roadmaps. They want a TMC partner who starts from their vision and helps them build it, not a supplier with a ready-made program and an off-the-shelf solution. The travel leaders we talk to say the same. The supplier worth having, is the one asking how to get them where they’re going, not the one reciting what it sells.
Trust is really about transparency
Trust was another theme throughout the show, which aligns to how we operate. We place trust at the core of how we work, it shapes how we operate and how we engage with clients. We’ve put our commitment in writing: the ALTOUR Commitment outlines our approach, through supplier-agnostic sourcing aligned to your negotiated program, no hidden fees, no overridden rules, your data is never sold or used to train AI, and independent audits. Because transparency that depends on simply “trusting us” isn’t true transparency.
Hearing these conversations around trust, it felt less like a new demand and more like the rest of the room arriving where we already were.
You can read our full position in Why Transparent Travel Management Matters More Than Ever.
Procurement is buying value, not transactions
The most sophisticated buyers are no longer focused on per-transaction fees. Instead, they’re evaluating the total value their TMC delivers; the partnership, the service, and the long-term results.
They’re looking at:
- Traveler experience
- Duty of care and managing risk
- Change Management
- Strategic Partnerships
Focusing only on contract savings while ignoring these factors often creates a false economy.
Dr John Rose our Chief Risk Officer joined a number of our meetings with travel leaders, and it’s clear that duty of care has climbed from an operational detail to a board-level risk. Legal and commercial teams are watching closely as litigation exposure grows, and that changes the maths. When a weak duty-of-care setup can land on the board’s desk, the TMC who just tracks travelers on a screen, becomes the most expensive TMC partner. The real question isn’t what a partner charges per booking. It’s whether they can carry that responsibility when it matters most.
Here are just a few examples of how organizations can be exposed: Duty of Care is Becoming the Defining Test of a Corporate Travel Program.
That’s a Wrap
These were just some of the key themes across the two days at BTS Europe, but one thread ran through all of them: buyers want evidence, transparency, and a partner that starts with their goals.
That’s how we already work.
Thanks to everyone who found the stand, joined us at The Fox and sat through that England match with us.
If any of these topics resonates with you, we’d love to continue the conversation and explore how ALTOUR can support you and your goals: https://altour.com/contact/
