From Green Growth to Payment Pains: Exploring the Big Questions Facing France’s Business Travel & MICE Sector

By Valérie Golléty, Country Director France, GBTA

GBTA brought together over 200 travel and MICE professionals for its Carrefour des Experts* at the 2025 IFTM trade show in Paris. We explored topics ranging from sustainability to payment challenges to the ever-persistent issue of "hotel leakage". GBTA's Valérie Gollety shares her perspective on some of the key discussions and insights from the day.

Decarbonising Business Travel: Strategies and Stumbling Blocks

We know that sustainability plays a major role in shaping European companies' business travel strategies, with 98% of firms now considering environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors in travel decisions. But how are they putting these ambitions into practice?

An expert panel, which included representatives from the worlds of air travel, IT and travel consulting, examined some of the initiatives currently being used, including a "full train" travel policy, "full electric" vehicle usage, business versus economy class, frequent flyer programs and purchasing usage, and Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF). While SAF is a key part of the decarbonisation journey, it is currently expected to play a more modest role in the near term, with potential to grow over time.

According to panelists, another big stumbling block for businesses aiming to achieve green growth is the lack of consistent methodologies for calculating CO₂ emissions, especially in air travel and hotel stays. This makes it harder for companies to track, manage and ultimately reduce their carbon footprints.

There are no easy solutions to the sustainability dilemma. Even seemingly obvious solutions have caveats. For example, electric cars are more sustainable only if compared with petrol/diesel cars of similar size (electric SUVs or 4x4s pollute more than a small petrol car).

Tackling Hotel Leakage: Risks, Realities, and Remedies

After tackling sustainability, our focus shifted to another pressing issue in business travel: hotel leakage. This term refers to situations where employees book accommodation outside of approved company channels, often attracted by seemingly better deals on third-party sites.

Our expert panel-featuring voices from the aerospace, hotels and expenses management sectors-unpacked the real-world consequences of leakage. These include:

• Security blind spots, with companies losing track of where employees are staying;
• Inaccurate data, which weakens RFP negotiations and disrupts hotel program alignment;
• Skewed sustainability metrics, complicating efforts to measure and reduce carbon footprints (adding to the issues identified in the previous section); and,
• Sales tracking issues, making it harder to assess performance and ROI.

While there's no universal fix, our panel shared a range of practical strategies to help curb leakage:

• Deploying intuitive, consumer-style, user-friendly booking tools;
• Expanding hotel options to meet diverse traveler needs;
• Promoting price transparency to highlight the value of corporate rates;
• Strengthening collaboration between hotel chains and procurement teams;
• Enhancing security and visibility with tailored corporate solutions; and,
• Leveraging AI to detect missing bookings.

Solving Payment Challenges in the MICE Sector

In another session, together with financial experts across the payments sector, we explored the benefits and challenges of MICE cards as a payment solution. MICE cards were recognized for their ability to offer cash advances, enhanced reporting, and richer data-all of which can sharpen vendor negotiations. But the consensus was clear: implementation is everything. Without proper planning and stakeholder alignment, even the best tools can fall short. Another problem which stood out for our panel was reconciliation of payments, especially when collecting invoices from suppliers.

The panel also highlighted the value of MICE cards in decentralised procurement environments, where coordination across finance, procurement, and event teams is essential.

With cybersecurity now a major priority─especially in light of recent attacks on airports and airlines-secure payment systems are no longer optional; they're mission-critical.

In short, the future of MICE payments lies in smarter tools, tighter collaboration, and a laser focus on security.

Join GBTA in December for Carrefour des Échanges

Are you interested in hearing more about these and related topics? Our next Carrefour event, "Carrefour des Échanges" will take place on 4 December 2025 at Le Méridien Etoile in Paris. Business travel and MICE leaders from across France will be sharing insights, expertise and best practice on one of the hottest topics facing every sector right now: how artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the travel & MICE industry.

Click here for more information or email [email protected] if you are interested in attending, or else just finding out more about GBTA France.
Follow the GBTA France LinkedIn page to stay updated on all our activities in France.

*Carrefour des Experts:
Launched in 2018, Carrefour des Experts is an in-person forum in which business travel and MICE professionals can discuss, debate, and share expertise on the common issues and challenges they face.