All of us have watched different industry sectors with a kind of shock over the last two years, and business travel is one of them. For many procurement teams, travel spend is part of their scope of responsibilities, and the challenges associated with ensuring traveler safety and comfort while also managing costs and risk have been significant - but perhaps this is an inflection point suggesting that it is time to think about business travel in an entirely new way.

In this episode of The Sourcing Hero podcast, Host Kelly Barner welcomes Scott Gillespie. Scott has been THE thought provoking advisor and innovator for the business travel industry for the last 25 years. He has pioneered concepts such as Total Cost of Travel and traveler friction, and was A. T. Kearney’s global expert on travel sourcing as far back as the 1990’s. Despite the challenges facing the travel industry today, Scott is a champion of goal-based travel management, justifiable travel, and eradicating traveler friction - not to mention the author of "Gillespie's Guide to Travel Innovation."

In this conversation, Scott shares his point of view on how business travel has changed and whether those changes will be temporary or long lasting:

How COVID-19 has shifted the objectives of business travel, and how executive leaders may be reexamining their “use of travel” as a result

Advice for companies revisiting their business travel policies and strategies

The metrics that will be most appropriate for measuring the ROI and business impact of travel going forward (Hint: the list doesn’t include savings…)