Even when not used metaphorically, “direction of travel” is an ugly expression, meaning nothing more than “direction”, but not quite as much as “destination”, since, no matter how clear a firm’s vector at a particular time, being captive of the navigation-by-ouija board that all modern multinationals are, it is prone to be moving towards a different blind horizon at any time, at the impetus of some newly-hired COO anxious to make his mark an a change-fatigued department or more likely a steerco or opco of her convening — in which case there may well be two or three different directions of travel at once.
See also