AI and Automation for Travel Managers
From overwhelmed to in control
The travel manager's remit keeps expanding. The time to handle it doesn't. More stakeholders, responsibility and complexity but the same number of hours in the day.
Robotic process automation and AI tools are already changing how the smartest travel teams operate, eliminating the repetitive work that eats the week and freeing up time for the conversations and decisions that move a programme forward. This full-day workshop shows you how to make that shift - practically, step by step, starting from wherever you are today.
No prior technical knowledge required. This is a session for travel managers, not IT departments.
What you'll leave with
A clear map of the repetitive tasks in your programme that are ready to be automated
The knowledge to brief an IT team or external provider and ask the right questions
A process flow framework you can apply immediately to your first automation project
The confidence to elevate your role - less admin, more strategic influence
A fundamentally expanded sense of “the possible”
What we cover
Spotting the opportunity
How to identify the repetitive, time-consuming tasks in your programme that are prime candidates for automation and how to prioritise where to start.Designing the solution
How to map a process flow that captures every element of a task; the inputs, the decisions, the outputs. Getting this right is what separates automations that work from ones that don't.Building it -with or without a technical team
How to work with your internal IT department, or how to source and brief an external provider. What good looks like, what to watch out for, and how to stay in control of the process.Testing, iterating and going live
Why testing is where most projects stall and how to move through it confidently. What a successful go-live looks like and how to measure it.What you do with the time you get back
The real prize isn't the automation itself. It's the stakeholder relationships, the strategic conversations and the programme improvements that become possible when the admin is gone.
Who this is for
Travel managers within corporate organisations who are ready to become more strategic
Meet Your Instructor
Sallyanne Heywood, Kintela Partner and Communications Strategist
Sallyanne has led communications at the highest levels of the global travel industry — formerly Director of Communications & Marketing at HRG and VP of Communications at Amex GBT. She has advised boards and senior leaders through crises, M&A, major product launches and transformation programmes. She knows what it takes to prepare a C-suite executive for the spotlight because she's done it hundreds of times.
Karen Hutchings
Karen has operated at the very top of corporate travel for decades, managing programmes of a scale most people in the industry only read about. As EY's Global Head of Travel, Meetings & Events, she oversaw a $2.1 billion programme and led a global team of 130.
In this session, she brings the buyer's perspective from the inside - what a travel manager actually needs from a supplier relationship, what makes a meeting worth attending, and what separates the suppliers who become strategic partners from the ones who stay transactional.