1995 Summer ACTE Quarterly: President's Message | Net Fares | Travel Manager's Industry Roundtable

Dear Colleague:

On the flight back from ACTE Global in Budapest, I did what most conference attendees do: I mulled over the significance of what I'd heard and learned, and then thought about how to fit this new knowledge into the way I perform my job as a travel manager. As an attendee, I was extremely pleased at the quality and content of the sessions. As president of ACTE, I have altogether more reasons to be pleased.

First, the event was deemed an unqualified success. The feedback we've gotten has been extraordinary. I'm also delighted at the number of international delegates the event drew. The last Global conference, in Munich, drew only 10 percent of its attendees from outside of North America. This year that figure was 42 percent.

That's a phenomenal increase. To me it suggests two things: First, that the globalization of travel management has matured to the extent that companies are showing a keen interest in new products, services, techniques and strategies; and second, that the membership drive prioritized in our strategies and performed by the ACTE U.K. committee and Canadian leadership, has been extremely successful.

Another thing that struck me was the passion with which the delegates tackled difficult issues. Some of these issues are challenging by their nature: ethics is complex, no matter whether you're talking about moral behaviors in business or in personal integrity. Quality standards in travel is also a surprisingly tedious and controversial subject Ñ whose standards are being met? The traveler's, the travel manager's or the agency's?

Other topics are difficult because they're new. Some of the liveliest sessions in Budapest were on commission caps and net fares, both so recent that we've barely had time to measure their meaningfulness.

Sitting in on the sessions, participating in formal roundtable discussions and in informal conversations at social functions, I couldn't help but feel gratified watching ACTE in action, so to speak. This is the most dramatic time for travel managers since the discipline was invented. Asking questions of colleagues, sharing knowledge, networkingÑthese have never been as vital. And ACTE's mission has never been more imperative.

1995 Summer ACTE Quarterly: President's Message | Net Fares | Travel Manager's Industry Roundtable