Navigating uncertainty: A financial leader’s guide to building resilience in the travel industry

Rethinking financial stability in a shifting economy

The global economy continues to challenge travel companies with rising inflation, high transportation and energy costs, and escalating service prices. Despite these pressures, 68% of companies remain optimistic about their performance in 2025… But optimism must be balanced with realism.

In 2024, a concerning trend emerged: only 29% of companies had a clear overview of their financial health, down from 45% the previous year. This erosion in visibility is a warning sign. As economic conditions grow more complex, companies must move beyond reactive financial management and embrace systems that offer real-time insights and proactive control.

“70% of businesses say it’s more important than ever to stress-test their company’s financial health.” – Pleo

A modern cloud-based ERP system provides the tools to conduct these stress tests continuously. Integrated financial management platforms allow businesses to model various economic scenarios, assess liquidity, monitor margin erosion, and optimize costs, ensuring that optimism is underpinned by resilience.

From fragmentation to integration – The new blueprint for finance

Finance teams across Europe are under more pressure than ever before. The demands on their time and capacity are rising, while expectations for strategic input continue to grow. Many organizations still rely on disconnected tools for core finance functions, resulting in manual processes, duplicated efforts, and unreliable data.

This aligns with a growing recognition that investment in modern financial infrastructure, particularly integrated ERP and back-office platforms, is essential, not optional.

With a modern cloud ERP system, finance teams can:

• Automate accounts receivable and payable processes.
• Streamline reconciliations with BSP/ARC integration.
• Consolidate financial data across departments for holistic reporting.
• Generate real-time dashboards for better decision-making.

Such integration isn’t just about efficiency. It allows finance leaders to shift their focus from transactions to transformation, becoming true business partners.

The strategic rise of the CFO

CFOs are no longer viewed solely as financial gatekeepers. They are increasingly recognized as strategic changemakers. The 2025 finance leader must drive digital transformation, act as a technology evaluator, and communicate across departments.

Business leaders have basically become aware of how important it is to have a CFO who can balance finances and business strategy to promote growth and stability.

With this elevated role comes increased responsibility, and greater exposure to burnout. The key to success lies in reducing the friction of manual work and fragmented tools.

CFOs must be equipped with systems that:

• Offer automation for repetitive tasks.
• Provide cross-functional visibility.
• Enable data-driven decision-making without delay.

Modern ERP systems support this by connecting the dots across the organization, from bookings and sales to accounting and customer insights. With the right tools, CFOs can shift from reactive to proactive leadership.

Technology as a resilience engine

Cloud ERP/mid & back-office systems are no longer just IT decisions. They are strategic imperatives. In fact, the role of the finance function is becoming increasingly tech-driven, and companies that can act on real-time data are significantly more agile.

Technology is the enabler of that focus. Whether through automated reporting, predictive analytics, or mobile access to dashboards, finance teams that adopt modern platforms gain:

• Real-time insight into costs, revenue, and forecasts.
• Automated workflows that reduce errors and save time.
• Enhanced compliance through secure, auditable systems.

These capabilities are especially vital in the travel industry, where margins are tight and operational complexity is high. Cloud-based deployment ensures scalability, remote accessibility, and automatic updates, freeing finance teams from the burden of outdated software and infrastructure.

Action plan for financial decision-makers

To move from insight to action, CFOs and finance leaders must begin by examining their existing processes and identifying the most significant areas of inefficiency. Here’s a practical roadmap to help you take the first step:

1. Audit your financial systems

• Where are your data silos?
• How manual is your month-end closing?

2. Invest in travel-specific ERP

• Look for platforms with deep travel industry capabilities that can hadle reconciliation, commission, tax rules, and customer data integration.

3. Enable cross-departmental collaboration

• Finance must work hand-in-hand with sales, operations, and customer service to build unified processes.

4. Leverage real-time analytics

• Empower teams to act quickly using AI-enhanced dashboards and automated alerts for cash flow, profitability, and risk.

5. Support your team’s transformation

• Provide the tools and training needed to embrace the digital shift and thrive in a more strategic role.

We never said it would be easy, but with the right technology, your travel business will be set for the future!

Final thoughts

In travel, change is constant. But so is the opportunity for reinvention. With the right technology foundation, CFOs can not only weather economic storms—but steer their companies toward smarter operations, better customer outcomes, and lasting success.

*Data from this article was collected by Sapio Research in December 2024 and January 2025 amongst 3250 financial decision makers in Great Britain, France, Spain, Germany, Sweden, and Denmark.

Source: www.pleo.dk