Andrew Sheivachman

Sometimes I have a vision of a cohesive mobile experience for hotels, where everything from booking to room entry and billing can be accomplished through one app. We're not anywhere close to that at scale, but steps are being taken to fix what's broken.

Instead of selling their platform to hotels, Conichi is now relying on corporate partners to help push through their technology from the other end. This can only be good news for business travelers as more efficient check-in processes and simpler expensing move into the mainstream.

After a failed initial public offering, PSAV is now in the hands of Blackstone. Time will tell if the move ends up increasing costs for event professionals as PSAV inevitably looks to expand its scale in the marketplace. The competition between hotels selling their own offerings and companies like PSAV will be fascinating to watch.

Travelport has worked hard over the last few years to develop new airline merchandising and travel payments solutions on a global level. Next comes the challenge of driving wider adoption in the marketplace.

Corporate travel is working to solve some of the big problems that have prevented change, although it's hard to really see foundational change taking place across the sector anytime soon.

After years of inaction, the big travel management companies are finally figuring out how to create a better booking experience for travelers. The dream of the personalized and automated future of corporate travel, though, may never come to pass.

There's a lot of buzz around emerging technologies like augmented reality and facial recognition. Realistically, though, it's too early for these things to really catch on, but companies like Cvent want to be ready to deploy new products when and if they do.

Cvent wants to be opportunistic about adding emerging technologies like augmented reality to its broad stable of products for event professionals. For the time being, the focus is on making its products easier to use and reducing the fragmentation that can make life more complicated for its customers.

It looks like 2018 could be the year that business travel growth truly peaks. With the specter of trade wars, Brexit, and financial instability on the horizon, the sector's financial outlook may change in a hurry.

In the first entry of the Skift Future of Business Travel Interview Series, we examined the growing promise of personalization and a more consumer-like experience. Stay tuned for more insights from across the sector in coming weeks.