As Chinese corporations expand their global footprint, the demand for cross-border business travel, overseas assignments, and corporate group trips is surging. This trend presents a significant opportunity for China's travel management companies (TMCs) in the international hotel sector. However, a recent analysis suggests that the vast majority of these firms are ill-equipped to deliver on that promise.
Speaking at the 2026 TravelDaily Digital Intelligence Conference in the Greater Bay Area, Baichuan Hu, Global Channel Director of Convergent International Travel, shared findings from a year-long study of 393 TMCs across China. He noted that the industry has moved beyond a growth model based solely on resource access and price competition. Today, most TMCs still face major hurdles, including underdeveloped fulfillment systems, limited technology capabilities, and insufficient cross-border service experience.
According to Hu, the ability to provide stable, controlled, and low-risk cross-border delivery has become a key dividing line in future TMC competition. Yet an estimated 85% of Chinese TMCs fall short on this front. Many lack the capacity to anticipate risks in overseas service environments, focusing only on basic processes such as booking, confirmation, and voucher issuance without proactively screening for less visible service and experience risks.
Systemic capability gap
This shortfall often leads to a costly dynamic: even when problems are not caused by the TMC or its supply chain partners, TMCs frequently have to step in and resolve disputes to maintain corporate client relationships and protect their service reputation. As a result, they absorb unnecessary service costs and compensation losses. Hu described this as a common challenge in cross-border hotel services, where TMCs are held accountable despite complying with procedures and forced to compensate despite not being at fault.
At a deeper level, this is not an isolated issue involving individual bookings but evidence of a systemic capability gap across the industry. Many TMC teams have built strong expertise in domestic corporate travel but lack in-depth knowledge of overseas hotel room-type definitions, display conventions, property standards, and service practices. They have yet to establish risk assessment frameworks tailored to cross-border scenarios, making it difficult to address information gaps in customer expectations before problems arise.
This challenge is particularly acute in the hotel sector, where discrepancies between booking details and actual property standards can lead to disputes. For example, a TMC might book a standard room at a Marriott property in Europe, only to find that the local classification differs from what the client expected. Without a robust risk assessment framework, the TMC ends up mediating the conflict.
Hu emphasized that the industry must move beyond a transactional mindset and invest in technology and training to build true cross-border delivery capabilities. This includes developing systems that can flag potential issues—such as differences in room types or service standards—before a booking is confirmed. It also means training staff to understand the nuances of international hotel operations, from the way room categories are displayed on global distribution systems like Amadeus or Sabre to the local service practices at properties in regions like Southeast Asia or the Middle East.
The findings align with broader trends in the travel industry, where UK travellers face the highest global costs from flight disruptions, highlighting the importance of proactive risk management across all travel sectors. For Chinese TMCs, the path forward involves not only upgrading technology but also fostering deeper partnerships with international hotel chains and GDS providers to ensure seamless service delivery.
As Chinese companies continue to invest in overseas operations, the pressure on TMCs to deliver reliable cross-border services will only intensify. Those that fail to address these systemic gaps risk losing corporate clients to more agile competitors, both domestic and international. The industry's ability to adapt will determine whether it can capitalize on the growing demand for cross-border business travel or remain stuck in a cycle of reactive problem-solving.
