A record-breaking 1,000 delegates headed to Paris last month for the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) global education conference held at the Marriott Rive Gauche. Sara Turner reports
ACTE AND GTMC ANNOUNCE FORMAL TIE-UP
ACTE and the Guild of Travel Management Companies (GTMC) are set to collaborate on industry issues and events. The conference saw the two organisations announce a memorandum of understanding formalising their relationship.
Together they plan to “tackle issues impacting on corporate travellers, TMCs and travel buyers”, as well as attend, promote and participate in each others’ events.
The GTMC, made up of travel management company and supplier members, has a “unique level of knowledge, insight and expertise” that ACTE hopes to draw on, according to the association’s executive director Ron DiLeo. “The GTMC is the right partner for us in the European marketplace,” he said.
ACTE, whose members are travel buyers as well as suppliers and agencies, will not take part in the GTMC’s political lobbying activities – but DiLeo said the GTMC “brings a deep knowledge of legislative issues which our members can take advantage of”.
GTMC chief executive Anne Godfrey said the link was a positive step for both organisations. “Our activities complement each other,” she said, “and we each have specific strengths we can share.”
GETTHERE GM APPOINTED ACTE PRESIDENT
Suzanne Neufang, general manager of Sabre’s management and expense system GetThere, was announced as ACTE’s new president elect at the conference. Neufang will succeed BCD Travel senior vice-president Chris Crowley, who has held the position since 2009. When she takes over the role of ACTE president in 2012, Neufang said she would be encouraging the business travel industry to “embrace innovation”.
“I’m eager to help prepare ACTE members for the industry and professional changes that the next decade will bring,” she said.
A key area for the new president will be implementing a standard of best practice for using technology, business intelligence and analytics in business travel.
She said she would also look to grow ACTE’s role in “forging alliances and partnerships” between travel suppliers and buyers.
Neufang has been working in travel and telecommunications for 20 years.
INDEX TO MONITOR BUSINESS TRAVEL AGAINST ECONOMY
ACTE launched a new tool to compare trends in business travel with the health of the world’s economy. The ACTE Index, unveiled at the Paris conference, compares data on air, hotel and car rental bookings with global economic indices such as GDP, the consumer price index and unemployment figures. The figures can be narrowed down by spend type (air, hotel or rail), time period and region.
Ron DiLeo said the tool, currently accessible free of charge, had been built “deep and wide” to allow detailed analysis.
While travel indices today only compare travel to travel, said DiLeo, the ACTE Index has been designed to show how business travel actually powers the global economy.
“The ACTE Index sheds insight on how corporate travel affects the economy, and is not just affected by it,” he said.
“It will predict how strong the travel industry is in any given month.”
The ACTE Index will help travel buyers and suppliers to make “predictive decisions based on industry behaviour, company performance, travel spend and market forces”, said DiLeo, “rather than always tracking from the rear-view mirror.”
Future improvements to the tool will also show how a travel programme of a particular company could affect its stock price, he said, but there will likely be a fee for this service. The first round of additions to the ACTE Index will be seen in April.
AMADEUS BOSS QUESTIONS MOBILITY MANIA
Technology for technology’s sake is just “hype”, Amadeus’s head of global commercials for corporations, Jason Long, told delegates. Questioning the current trend for mobility solutions, he said: “On the mobile side we’re all getting involved, attending workshops, seminars and conferences, and we’re still not really that sure what we’re going to do with it.”
Long suggested corporates should instead be focussing on the integration of self-booking tools, expense management and HR databases as a “tried and trusted” way to save money and improve processes.
He said integration is “not sexy, not that new [and] not that innovative”, but has “proven to be valuable”.
“I’m not saying that Amadeus doesn’t advocate exploring mobility and using mobility – of course it does, we’re investing in that as well – but what is interesting to me is I think you can get carried away,” he said.
“Every time we install end-to-end integrated solutions for travel and procurement, the company saves money and processes are enhanced, and generally the company gets a lot of value.”