While UK agents may be basking in the knowledge that business appears to be booming (see GTMC reports 10% leap in bookings), there just might be a cloud gathering on the horizon.
This is what Mike Platt, managing director of BTI UK, describes as a "small but growing trend" of companies setting a budget for a particular trip and allowing the traveller to travel as he or she wishes.
Over at Carlson Wagonlit Travel, Simone Buckley, UK director of sales and marketing, said the TMC was in talks with a client, a UK manufacturing company, which was considering the idea of allowing its travellers to book for themselves.
Mr Platt told BTE: "There are a number of clients who instead of saying 'You must fly economy class' are saying to the traveller ‘If you can get a business class ticket for an economic class price, you can do it.'
"It is a growing thing where customers out there, particularly from medium-sized companies which don't have an enormous deal that they could damage with a legacy carrier, who are saying 'We will set you a budget rather than a class of travel. You can go as you like as long as you don't spend anymore than this.'"
"It is fairly new and it is not vast at this time but it is a trend that is growing, where people are beginning to say to themselves 'Why are we fixated on class when there are so many different ranges of prices.' It does not really matter which cabin you are in but how much you spend."
It could mean that a traveller goes low cost and checks in at a smarter than normal hotel or a traveller, booked in for business class, trades down so he or she can take their partner, with both travelling economy.
Ms Buckley said the client company with which it was in talks had said it did not want to manage its travel "but just allow our travellers to go out and make the booking with whoever they want to."
The company had already set up an advisory board of heads of departments, bookers and travellers to work out what the impact of such a policy might be.
It raised the question, she said, of what value the client placed on things like the duty of care or the value of having an agent book an air fare and hotel together.
She said there was a possibility that the company might let some of its departments "go off and do their own thing."
But there were obvious and immediate concerns over the duty of care which the company was mulling over. "It is actually not knowing where these people are, not being able to get a handle on them if there is a crisis like last July or September 11.
"With people booking outside the managed environment, you would not be able to track them down. There would not be a crisis management plan in place."
But for travel managers, there is also the issue of process: how would the spend be tracked down and included in MI or even whether a "do it yourself" policy required detailed MI if each trip had a set budget.
The origin of this budding trend might well be in the area of rogue travellers who book as they wish and pose a problem to a travel manager. Ms Buckley said this was her personal feeling although she had no evidence.
Mr Platt has often remarked on the matter of mis-connecting where travellers book outside company travel policy, endangering airline deals in the process. And in turn this is part of the wider problem of travellers, for whatever reason, not appreciating the merits of a travel policy and why it should be adhered to nor the full range of services that TMCs provide for their fees.
A do it yourself policy seems to be fully at odds with the concept of managed travel but clearly it is attracting companies in the UK.
It will be interesting to see how it develops.