Travel buyers from Amgen Inc., Miller Brewing Co. and Tokyo Electron America were among 60 corporate travel managers and travel suppliers last month who attended the National Business Travel Association's second annual Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C., to lobby government officials for travel security measures that do not hamper the business travel industry. The summit featured addresses by Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), representatives from both the John Kerry and Bush-Cheney campaigns and also enabled participants to meet individually with "senators, representatives or staff" to voice their concerns. Betty Sweetman, NBTA vice president and senior travel manager at Amgen, said Lott and Nelson touched on two primary topics: homeland security and aviation funding. Although the presentations primarily comprised "formal remarks," Sweetman said there was an opportunity for questions from the audience.
NBTA officials last week also joined the National Chamber Foundation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Travel Business Roundtable at the National Travel and Tourism Summit
(see story, page 9) to discuss security processes. "Security efforts that make travel an unpleasant experience will reduce the number of trips Americans take and have a negative impact on the economy," said NBTA president and CEO Carol Devine. "We need to fund travel security without hitting the travelers' pocketbooks and without impeding upon travelers' privacy."
Meanwhile, representatives from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, Continental Airlines and the Airports Council International on May 24 addressed 47 buyers and suppliers at the Association of Corporate Travel Executives' PowerTalk session in Washington D.C. ACTE said DHS addressed participants on the ongoing issues in traveler security, Continental Airlines took the opportunity to discuss the plight of what an ACTE spokesperson described as the overtaxed airlines and ACI discussed the continued burden on airport operators in light of airport security adjustments.
ACTE last month also formed an alliance with the International Association of Privacy Professionals to address such issues as CAPPS II and the Registered Traveler program, which have created "a substantial overlap of corporate travel policies and privacy policies," ACTE said. The two organizations last month hosted their first joint audioconference to look at the relationship between privacy and travel security measures. "The ongoing evolution of the CAPPS II program, and now the accelerated development of a Registered Traveler program, has exposed a lot of philosophical and operational questions regarding privacy," said ACTE president Garth Jopling, "questions that travel managers will have to ultimately answer in making their evaluations and recommendations to upper management. Just as changing times have brought business travel into the realm of corporate security, we've reached the point where corporate privacy officers and travel managers need to confer."