Although business travel and corporate meeting attendance have been dealt a body blow this year, the National Business Travel Association (NBTA) still managed to draw a near-record crowd of 5,500 travel executives and suppliers to its recent annual convention, which featured a star-studded speakers lineup that included Bill Clinton, Jay Leno and Chesley Sullenberger, better known as Captain Sully.
Opening speaker Sullenberger kicked off the meeting on Aug. 24 at the San Diego Convention Center with an inspiring message about how he “withdrew the 42 years of experience that I had put in the bank” to successfully land an airplane in the Hudson River last January, saving the lives of 155 people.
Bringing things to a close on Aug. 26, former President Clinton drew applause by affirming the importance of business travel and face-to-face meetings, citing his recently completed “business trip” to North Korea and “the fact that we are living in an increasingly inter-dependent world.”
In between the speeches, NBTA released a new white paper, “A Strategic Approach to Small Meetings,” the latest in a series of reports on corporate meetings management. The organization is about to launch its first-ever certification program for meeting planners, Strategic Meetings Manager (SMM). An SMM track of educational sessions was part of this year’s program at the convention.
During the convention, NBTA leadership announced that its anticipated merger with the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) is currently on hold, claiming that the ACTE board “has refused to enter the financial due diligence process.”
Also at the convention, the NBTA Foundation released its annual report on projected U.S. business travel costs, predicting increased costs due to a rise in travel-related taxes.
