Earl Foster Chair ACTE

ACTE XIII: Raising the Bar and Expectations by Earl Foster

The most popular educational presentation, for the second year in a row, was strategic sourcing. Now that the concept has been fully explored and embraced, it's being developed to its maximum potential. To those who claim that the travel management function has reached its limits, I point to strategic sourcing. The result of new business models, strategic sourcing is an example of how the travel management profession continues to evolve within itself. A new concept five years ago, it's a "best practice" now. Travel management and strategic sourcing bring the best talents together to enhance the process.

One of the big surprises of this year's conference was the economy, which provided a background mutter throughout the crowd. ACTE's leadership couldn't help but ask itself, "How will the economy affect conference attendance? Will it cut down on European participation? Will it cast a pall over the plans for the industry's future growth?" The answers were equally surprising. This year's conference attendance was up by 10 percent over last year, with more than 1,100 registrants. Of these, 48 percent were corporate. Not only was conference attendance up, ACTE XIII also produced one of the highest corporate-to-vendor participation ratios in the business travel management industry! European participation remained strong at 15 percent.

If the economy was a factor, then it was a positive one.

It can't be denied that the economy was a major networking topic. Travel managers wanted to know what steps colleagues were taking in travel cutbacks and cost containment. The general analysis was all very positive. The purpose of effective travel policies is to eliminate unnecessary travel. Companies have been attempting to cut back on travel whenever its cost goes up and the price of alternatives comes down. An economy in a downswing just puts a stronger emphasis on the process. The objective of the travel manager is to provide the right programs for the appropriate economy. Tough times call for travel managers to be creative. This conference was all about getting creative and poised for a new period of corporate growth.

ACTE XIII's Technology Experience was still a crowd pleaser and the most popular event of the conference. Registrants surged through the exhibits, kicking the tires and getting hands-on demonstrations of how things worked. The new consensus is that systems are becoming more user-friendly, more traveler-oriented, and easier to integrate into a corporate system. This will go a long way in eliminating the technology paralysis faced by some companies.

The best way to judge the success of a conference is to listen to the background noise... The comments at lunch… The dialogues in between seminars. All I heard was the sound of people working to change the future. Nearly everyone had taken Greeley Koch's advice to leave their opinions at home and to pack only ideas earmarked for exchange.

These were some of the remarks I heard:

"I'm glad we reached consensus on that point so early in the discussion. We were then able to move on to translating the data."

"Three days and almost no commercial messages."

"I wish my boss had seen this."

"The speech was better than the food at lunch today."

"I really enjoyed this."

And...

"This was one of the best conferences I've attended in a long career." (I said this.)

While all of these comments are gratifying to me as a long-standing officer of this organization, the comment I like to hear the most is,

"I really got a lot out of this year's conference."

And that was the comment I heard most often.

One of the benefits of being part of an industry that changes daily and offers new wonders on a regular basis, is that when you are surprised, you're really surprised. The ACTE XIII Global Spring Conference has not only raised the bar (and expectations) for future ACTE conferences, but for the industry as well.

Return to ACTE XIII Tampa Highlights Page