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Campbell Travel: Shaping the Future of Workforce Lodging
Highlights from the GBTA Workforce Mobility & Travel Summit
Campbell Travel was honored to participate in this year’s GBTA Workforce Mobility & Travel Summit, an event that continues to grow in relevance as organizations across the world navigate evolving mobility demands. This year’s summit brought together a broad range of industry buyers, suppliers, and innovators from sectors including oil & gas, insurance, energy, crisis and emergency management, construction, and aviation—all industries where crew movement, remote deployments, and temporary lodging are essential to daily operations.
For Campbell Travel, the summit was an invaluable opportunity to connect directly with decision-makers and showcase how our lodging division continues to meet the complex needs of today’s mobile workforce.
A Strong Start at The Camby Phoenix Hotel
The summit kicked off with a warm and energetic welcome reception at The Camby Phoenix Hotel. The atmosphere set the tone for the week: collaborative, open, and eager for meaningful dialogue.
Our team engaged with dozens of attendees, many of whom expressed growing challenges around sourcing, managing, and supporting travel for dispersed or rapidly moving workforces. From insurance adjusters responding to storm claims, to construction project crews moving from site to site, to airline crew schedulers dealing with irregular operations, each vertical shared a similar need: consistent, reliable lodging solutions that reduce friction for travelers and improve cost controls for their organizations.
These opening conversations reaffirmed what drives our mission at Campbell Travel. Workforce lodging is no longer about simply booking rooms—it’s about managing risk, ensuring traveler safety, optimizing budgets, and keeping operations running smoothly amid unforeseen disruptions.
Spotlight on Campbell Travel’s Lodging Division
Throughout the summit, our booth became a center for discussion about the realities of modern workforce mobility. As companies expand into new regions or deploy more teams to field assignments, the complexity of lodging programs continues to grow.
Buyers from across all represented industries echoed similar challenges:
- Inconsistent hotel availability in remote or high-demand areas
- Last-minute deployment needs with little visibility
- Rising hotel rates impacting budgets
- Traveler safety during crisis response or extended stays
- Difficulty negotiating crew rates without data support
- Lack of centralized reporting on lodging usage and spending
These challenges are exactly where Campbell Travel’s lodging solutions excel.
Our team highlighted how we help clients standardize and streamline their lodging programs through:
- Curated hotel networks
We leverage long-standing partnerships and negotiated rates tailored for extended stays, rotating crews, and project-based travel. - Real-time assistance and traveler support
Our lodging specialists ensure travelers can check in smoothly, relocate when necessary, or navigate disruptions with minimal downtime. - Centralized reporting and insights
We provide full visibility into traveler patterns, cost trends, compliance, and supplier performance. - Cost control and savings
By consolidating lodging bookings, aligning spending, and negotiating strategically, many clients experience significant year-over-year savings. - Safety-first traveler care
We work closely with providers to ensure travelers are placed in safe, reliable lodging environments with clear escalation paths.
Through every conversation, buyers made it clear: lodging has become one of the most important—and most challenging—components of workforce travel. And Campbell Travel is committed to being the partner that makes it easier.
A Day of Insightful Sessions and Industry Learning
Day Two of the summit was dedicated to education and connection. Attendees moved between presentations, roundtables, discussions, and the expo floor, creating a full day of shared learning.
Key themes emerged across sessions:
- Increased unpredictability in travel operations
- A heightened focus on traveler well-being
- The need for flexible lodging arrangements
- The rise of mobile and remote workforces
- Technology’s expanding role in workforce deployment
For Campbell Travel, these themes reinforce the direction of our own strategy. Our lodging division continues to invest in technology and service enhancements that give clients more control, better data, and a smoother traveler experience—even during unpredictable events.
We had the opportunity to continue conversations at our booth about how organizations can prepare for the next wave of workforce travel needs. Whether it was a buyer struggling with high-volume seasonal deployments or an airline crew manager dealing with irregular operations, the message was clear: they need partners who can react quickly, scale effectively, and deliver consistent service across all markets.
Role Reversal: Seeing Travel from Both Sides
The summit closed on a high note with an engaging and creative role-reversal panel. Participants stepped into the roles of hotel staff and travelers, reenacting real-world scenarios ranging from late-night check-ins to sudden schedule changes and weather-related disruptions. The exercise revealed not only the operational pressure points that hotels and travelers face but also the importance of empathy, clear communication, and proactive planning.
We were thrilled to see our own Marc DuFrene featured as one of the panelists. Marc brought an incredibly grounded perspective to the discussion, emphasizing how lodging partners, travel managers, and hotel teams must work together to ensure travelers feel supported—even when things go sideways. His insights resonated strongly with attendees and reinforced Campbell Travel’s commitment to service excellence across every stage of the traveler’s journey.
Looking Ahead: Campbell Travel’s Role in a Changing Mobility Landscape
The GBTA Workforce Mobility & Travel Summit was a powerful reminder of how essential strong partnerships are in today’s travel ecosystem. Mobility trends are shifting rapidly: companies are deploying more workers across more locations, often with shorter notice and higher expectations for safety and efficiency.
Campbell Travel is proud to be at the forefront of workforce lodging solutions, offering clients the tools, relationships, and expertise they need to keep operations running smoothly. From project-based crews to emergency response teams to high-volume rotational travel, our lodging division is built to support the industries that depend on mobility the most.
We left Phoenix with renewed energy, strengthened partnerships, and a deeper commitment to helping organizations navigate the complexities of workforce travel with confidence.
We look forward to continuing these conversations—and seeing many of these partners again at future GBTA events.