Meetings & Events vs. Travel: Hidden Costs & Double Standards

Do you have better spend visibility into a $5 coffee than a $20,000 event?

That was the question at the heart of the session on Meetings & Events (M&E) at Navigate Europe 2026 last week.

One key takeaway was that responsibility for M&E is increasingly falling to travel teams. Addressing this shift, Navan Events leaders Galen Grady, SVP & GM and Hayley Kane, VP of Event Management, UK & Europe, explored what they describe as the "spending paradox" between business travel and M&E. 

Sharing industry data that showed M&E typically accounts for 30-42% of total travel spend, they asked, why do organizations often have detailed visibility into those small travel expenses, such as the humble coffee, yet spending for M&E — a category that can account for a significant share of total travel and expense spend — remains fragmented and difficult to track?

If your CFO asked for your total meeting spend today, could you give an accurate answer?

One particularly striking insight was how many attendees admitted during the session that they couldn't confidently answer a simple question from their CFO: "How much are we spending on M&E?"

Taking real-world examples from both the worlds of business travel and M&E, Grady and Kane highlighted some of the challenges organizations are facing when meeting spend is managed across disconnected teams and processes. One experience from a previous client-side role involved a meeting booked outside of approved processes, resulting in a €30,000 cancellation fee when dates changed. The booking had been made with good intentions by an executive assistant but, because it wasn't made through preferred channels or contracted suppliers, the organization had little protection when plans changed.

Stories like this, Grady and Kane argued, are far from unusual.

As well as the challenges from unexpected cancellation fees, the session raised other hidden costs that can emerge when visibility is limited across all travel spend, from missed savings opportunities and forecasting challenges to duty-of-care concerns.

So how can you gain control of meeting spend?

This session examined how business travel has evolved into a highly structured, data-rich category, while M&E often still operates through fragmented workflows and manual processes. Yet, importantly, the speakers discussed what organizations can do to close that gap without creating additional friction for meeting organizers.

The key message woven throughout was that improving visibility into total travel spend can be achieved, as Grady outlined a vision of bringing travel and M&E spend together into a single system of record.

When planners have intuitive tools, integrated workflows, and access to support when they need it, Grady explained, they have better visibility and control with it. Which leaves them with the capacity to focus more on delivering events that achieve their intended outcomes, while giving finance, procurement, and travel teams a complete picture of event spend.

Watch the session on demand

You’ll find out:

• Why M&E remains one of the biggest blind spots in corporate spend
• The hidden costs organizations often overlook — and where to find them
• What organizations can do to bring greater visibility and control to total travel and M&E spend
• What a single platform that covers both individual Travel & Expense and M&E can do for your business

Watch the full session