This story is updated at the foot of the page after BTN Europe spoke with BT4Europe on 28 February.
Business travel associations from across Europe have formed the European Network of Business Travel Associations (BT4Europe).
The Brussels-based non‐profit association has 13 founding members who want to give business travel buyers a stronger voice in Europe.
A statement from the organisation said that until now business travel buyers across companies, public services and NGOs, have not had a unified network to make their collective voice heard at a European level.
BT4Europe aims to bridge the gap between member associations and European regulators with post-Covid recovery, sustainable travel and digital development the immediate priorities.
The organisation’s founding members are ABTA (Austria), AEGVE (Spain), AITMM (Italy), AFTM (France), ASTM (Switzerland), BATM (Belgium), CORTAS (The Netherlands), DBTA (Denmark), FBTA (Finland), NATM (The Netherlands), NBTA (Norway), SBTA (Sweden) and VDR (Germany).
The statement added that BT4Europe is open for further members to join.
UK buyer organisation ITM is not a founding member. A spokesperson for the group said: “ITM admires the work being undertaken with BT4Europe. We held initial discussions with the group and intend to keep an open dialogue in the future.”
Patrick Diemer, newly elected chair of the organisation and an advisor to VDR, said: "A united force to represent business travel buyers is strongly needed in Europe. For too long has the industry focused on national decision makers while relevant legislation has moved to pan‐European levels. BT4Europe will advance the industry and will advance Europe."
Dominic Short, president of Switzerland's travel management organisation ASTM and a board director for BT4Europe, said: "A crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic needs a strong and coherent response from all European states. We only keep our economies and societies afloat, if we impose the identical restrictions and identical rules for domestic and cross‐border travel."
Lotten Fowler, general manager, Swedish Business Travel Association and a BT4Europe board director, said: "Too much paperwork makes business travel highly inefficient. We save time, money and contribute to the climate, if we deploy digital processes throughout business travel. Digital business travel needs support from legislation."
• Speaking to BTN Europe at the GBTA/VDR convention in Berlin,
the three representatives said talks to bring buyer associations together from across
Europe had taken place previously over the years but accelerated as a result of
the Covid-19 crisis and the demise of ACTE.
Several of the member associations had previously been
aligned with ACTE. Others, including VDR, continue as partners of GBTA.
“We don’t see ourselves as being in competition with other [buyer]
organisations,” said Diemer. “It [the group] is about advocacy. There’s no
individual memberships and we’re not planning events.”
Fowler added: “Would it have happened if Covid hadn’t
happened? I’m not sure. Not many people were talking about business travel [in the
mainstream media] and we need a unified voice to explain the challenges we are
facing. It is not an easy task to bring so many different interests and opinions
together.”
The organisation, which has a virtual office in Brussels and
is funded by financial commitments from its member associations, said it did
not yet have an estimate of the combined business travel spend it represents
but that such information will be important in its future lobbying efforts.
Asked if the organisation was disappointed the UK’s ITM had not
joined the 13 other associations in the group, Diemer said “the door remains
open”.