Conference season has brought the T&A debate roaring back to life: Should vendors still pay for funded analyst travel?

The argument for having analysts in the room is valid. Time with executives, customers, and product teams gives analysts nuance they simply do not get from briefings. That nuance shows up later in research, client conversations, and market perception.

But the current model has drifted. A trip can easily be a $5,000 planning assumption once flights, hotel, meals, and ground transportation are added up. Multiply that across a meaningful list of analysts, and the spend becomes significant.

The Gartner VIE episode is telling. Gartner introduced VIE to reduce the number of its analysts attending vendor events and to centralize control. It funded attendance itself to force the change and Gartner analyst attendance at many vendor events dropped sharply.

The policy was revised at the start of this year, allowing vendors to pay again, but requests still go through the VIE team. Gartner got its gatekeeper, and vendors got more analysts back in the room.

At the same time, several of the largest European telcos do not cover T&A and still see strong analyst turnouts. That should prompt every vendor to ask a hard question: If attendance falls apart when travel is no longer subsidized, what exactly is driving the relationship?

The real problem is that vendors have conditioned the market to expect too much. Upgrade demands, exception requests, and budget triage now consume time that AR teams should be spending on strategy.

The answer is not to stop paying overnight. It is to stop saying yes to everything.

Clear policy. Fewer exceptions. Better events. Greater discipline.

Would analysts who attend multiple events during conference season still attend as many if each trip cost them $5,000 out of pocket? That’s the question vendors should be asking, not whether to keep paying.