Earl Foster Chair ACTE

ACTE XIII: Raising the Bar and Expectations by Earl Foster

The risk of being part of an industry that changes daily and offers new wonders on a regular basis is becoming jaded to change and wary of new wonders. After a while, you begin to expect it. Its easy to believe you've seen everything after more than a dozen years of conferences and conventions. And yet you seem to remember a time when conferences smacked of excitement, industry intrigue and genuine surprise.

The recent ACTE XIII Global Spring Conference (April 22 - April 24, 2001) opened with excitement, side-stepped the industry intrigue and surprised attendees with a hard-hitting agenda that never quit. For those who wanted answers, the association asked the questions. For those seeking alternative solutions, seminars and presenters offered new travel management models. And for those looking for the best way to handle a global economy in flux, there was unparalleled networking.

Some conferences are great for giving attendees little gifts and mementos. This conference began by giving each attendee a focal point: the business traveler. A poignant video put a face on the business traveler and reminded all of us that service to the business traveler is the primary nature of our industry. It's the reason we attend these conferences in the first place. Greeley Koch, ACTE's vice president of education, carried this point one step further in reminding us that ideas are more profitable than opinions, and that insight reaches its full potential when shared. Conference co-chairs Sara Isaacs and Bob Somers defined the event's objectives, and suggested the best way to meet them was head-on.

The big travel issue of the day was data ownership. It remained an issue and not a point of division. Those who generate the data (corporate consumers) believe it belongs to them. Those who own the processes which collect and transmit this data (everybody else) feel otherwise. It is to the credit of all concerned that the usual approach to a situation of this nature, that possession is nine tenths of the law, has not been called into play. The conference took the first step in providing resolution by defining the problem. I predict the ultimate solution will be a compromise between ownership and access by those who form the relationship with the buyer.