Over the past two years, nearly all our work happened in one of two ways: “on Zoom” or “off Zoom.” While we’re starting to think about more diversified ways of doing business again in 2022, it’s powerful to keep looking through this simple lens.

When I entered the industry almost a decade ago, I noticed that meetings have always been treated as the “sideshow” of business travel. Travel consistently received more attention, bigger dollars, and overall was treated as the more important activity. I believe the pandemic has changed this consciousness forever. When you really examine “why” people are traveling, the lion’s share of business travel has to do with meetings. You travel to meet people at their offices, gather for lunch or dinner, or meet in groups to work together. Rarely are you traveling solo to tour an abandoned location without some meeting taking place.

The big picture is that meetings are the “why” of business mobility and travel is just one component. To achieve a business objective, there are several components:  the context and relationships, the people involved, the tools and documents, and the longer-term measurement of success. The truth is, most business travel platforms have failed to embrace this holistic view and thus have been unable to produce a reliable and scalable mechanism for trip justification and return on investment.  

Going forward, CEOs and CFOs will demand to know “why the hell this couldn’t just be a Zoom meeting.” We must confront the reality that this question is not going to go away. Yesterday’s method was a form field where employees fill out “why do I need to travel.” But these answers will no longer be enough in the post-pandemic workplace, which has proven that videoconferencing was a suitable alternative. Blind faith in the need for business travel has officially eroded with the pandemic—the future relies on data.

The travel system of the future will start with meetings. You’ll look at a Netflix-like library of typical use cases, and you’ll begin a natural and automated path of defining the purpose and importance of the trip and the participants involved. Artificial intelligence should serve you the right travel policies and preferred vendors to utilize for the specific use case and will measure success of the initiative.  

Starting with meetings will lead to a better ROI calculation, much clearer travel justification led by data, and an optimized mobile workforce. Not only would travel programs improve with this configuration but taking this holistic approach would also lead to significantly better experiences for travelers. When you start with meetings, your program managers, support team and travel agents all understand the “why” of the trip throughout the traveler’s journey. This deep sense of understanding is the future of corporate travel.