2022 was the year when business travel started to rebound and travel management companies could look to the heavens and thank whichever deity they believed in for their survival. With the costs of business travel running higher, TMCs began to start making money again. Yet not everyone has emerged in perfect health.

American Express Global Business Travel said that total transactions had recovered to 72% of 2019 levels during 2022 and that it had won $3.5 billion of new account wins, which chief executive Paul Abbott stated was a new record. The company said that increased meetings and events revenue and consolidation of Egencia, which it acquired in 2021, had helped boost revenues.

CWT continues to try to get its house in order after the shock of Covid and its financial reorganisation in 2021. At the end of 2022, Fitch assigned the company a CCC rating which meant the TMC had “a low margin of safety”. Fitch said the rating “reflects the potentially elongated recovery in global corporate travel stemming from current macroeconomic pressures. While CWT has seen a meaningful top-line rebound this year with dissipating cash-burn, liquidity could become challenged again should travel volumes recover softer than expected to stagnate.” Fitch is working on the assumption that total transaction values in the sector will not recover until 2025.

Australia’s Corporate Travel Management (CTM) finished financial 2022 in good shape. The company had returned to profit – albeit a small one – and was in a strongly liquid position, with no debt and $142.1 million in cash available. In its annual report the company said, “Travel is back, and our business is primed for the rebound – larger, stronger, more relevant and impactful than ever before.”

Venture money continues to come into the sector. In January, TravelPerk achieved the milestone of becoming a unicorn, with a valuation exceeding $1 billion. Its new $1.3 billion valuation came after it raised $115 million in a Series D round with investment coming from Gillian Tans and Joel Cutler. Tans was previously chairwoman and CEO of Booking.com while Cutler has previously invested in Airbnb, Kayak, and ITA Software.

Founder and CEO Avi Meir said the company planned to invest “heavily” in green travel tech. In the announcement Meir said, “We want to take our sustainability expertise to the next level, and make sure that when people do meet face to face, they don’t do so at the expense of our planet.”

In October TripActions carried out a Series G funding round that raised $304 million, including $154 million in equity from investors, including returning investors Andreessen Horowitz and Premji Invest, and a $150 million structured financing deal from Coatue.

The fundraising values the company at $9.2 billion and appears to be a precursor to a much-touted plan to go public in the second quarter of 2023 which it will do under a new name, the palindromic Navan – “a combination of the words navigate and avant”.

As an aside and with a tilt towards the future, business-travel-as-a-service platform Spotnana raised a further $75 million during the summer. “By modernising the entire technology stack for booking a trip, they are breaking down the walls between suppliers and travellers and opening the door to a new level of personalisation in the booking process,” said Henry Ellenbogen, managing partner of lead investor Durable Capital Partners.

With the availability of “easy” money in the sector and air fares and hotel rates staying elevated for some time, it seems likely that the big guns will get even bigger.