At GBTA 2025, we explored how organizations can uncover hidden value in their Travel and Expense (T&E) programs by connecting the dots between booking data and expense data. Our session, Show Me the Data: Find the Hidden Value in Your T&E Spend, focused on breaking down data silos, surfacing hidden cost drivers, and turning fragmented information into actionable insights.
Travel and Expense programs generate vast amounts of data, but many organizations aren’t fully tapping into their potential. Between fragmented systems, inconsistent data, and siloed information, valuable insights often get lost. The result? Missed savings, under-leveraged supplier relationships, and less control over total trip costs.
By integrating expense and travel booking data, organizations can uncover hidden opportunities, improve forecasting, and strengthen their negotiating power. Here’s how to turn raw T&E data into actionable business intelligence.
Why This Is a Challenge
Most companies face similar challenges when trying to make sense of their T&E data:
- Fragmentation – Multiple booking tools, card programs, and expense platforms create disconnected data sets.
- Lack of standard data models – Inconsistent formats make it difficult to consolidate and compare.
- Incomplete or missing data – Gaps in traveler behavior tracking, supplier usage, and post-trip spend.
- Internal silos – Finance, travel, and procurement teams may each hold part of the picture, but rarely see the whole.
- Limited analytics expertise – Even with the data in hand, interpreting it for strategic action requires specialized skills.
What Integrated Expense Data Can Deliver
When booking and expense data are connected, you gain a full, end-to-end view of T&E activity. This unlocks:
- Cost Reduction – Identify policy violations, leakage, and unnecessary spend.
- Stronger Supplier Relationships – Back negotiations with post-trip, real-world usage data.
- Total Expense Management – Account for all costs, not just those tied to reservations.
- Better Forecasting – Use timely, accurate data to anticipate demand and budget needs.
- Increased Executive Support – Demonstrate value with data-driven recommendations.
5 High-Impact Areas to Apply This Insight Right Away
1. Reduce Costs Through Proactive Management
Don’t wait for the monthly expense report to spot waste. Integrated data enables real-time compliance monitoring and highlights hidden cost-saving opportunities, from over-budget hotel stays to redundant meeting expenses. Align finance and travel teams to move from reactive fixes to proactive cost control.
2. Maximize Supplier Value
Supplier agreements aren’t just about negotiated rates; they’re about utilization. Post-trip data reveals if travelers are booking within contract terms, or if vendor non-compliance is undermining savings. Audit regularly to spot leakage, track incentive misses, and ensure each travel management company (TMC) is using automation to your advantage.
3. Manage Total Expenses Post-Booking
Airfare and hotel costs are only part of the picture. Meals, ground transport, meeting and event (M&E) spend, and other ancillary costs can drive total trip cost far beyond the booking price. Integrated visibility helps you capture every dollar spent and coordinate related budgets.
4. Improve Forecasting Accuracy
Accurate forecasting relies on timely, complete, and consistent data. Predictive analytics tools can help anticipate travel demand variability, plan budgets more precisely, and ensure adequate resources are in place. The key is feeding those tools with standardized, up-to-date booking and expense information.
5. Build Leadership Support and a Data-Driven Culture
Executive buy-in comes when insights lead to action. Foster collaboration across departments, make the business case for T&E optimization, and embed data review into regular management routines. Over time, this creates a culture where decisions are grounded in facts, not assumptions.
5 Essential Insights from the Session
- Post-booking expenses can erode control. Integrate booking and expense data for a complete picture.
- Not all policy violations are traveler-driven. Track vendor-related exceptions with reason codes across systems.
- Contract utilization varies. Use automation and monthly reviews to maximize incentives and minimize off-channel bookings.
- Leakage isn’t always bad. Net out “good leakage” (like negotiated room blocks) and focus efforts on eliminating “bad leakage.”
- Trip purpose matters. Capture it consistently in both travel and expense records to inform strategy.
Where to Start
- Review the top three T&E suppliers and evaluate their data-sharing capabilities.
- Integrate travel and expense systems wherever possible to close visibility gaps.
- Establish standard data definitions to ensure consistency across sources.
- Schedule regular policy and supplier performance reviews using combined data sets.
- Invest in the analytic tools and expertise needed to interpret the results.
Bottom line: Your T&E program already holds the insights you need to cut costs, improve supplier leverage, and forecast more accurately. The challenge isn’t collecting the data—it’s connecting it, analyzing it, and acting on it. With an integrated approach, you can transform T&E from a cost center into a strategic asset.
Download Presentation
