Participants in the Oct. 22-24 Association of Corporate Travel Executives global conference in Barcelona learned from ACTE president Greeley Koch that he will relinquish his presidency in July 2007 to Richard Crum, president and CEO of AirPlus International North America.
Originally, Koch's successor was going to be Nadine Dewart, global travel buyer for DuPont, who would have been ACTE's first president from outside North America. However in June, Dewart stepped down, citing work conflicts
(BTN, June 5). As a result of that timing, Crum will serve a 16-month term instead of the traditional two years.
"With my selection in the middle of October, the normal order of succession would have had me taking over in January, which really would have given me two months to get acquainted with the board," according to Crum. "The board made the decision, and Greeley agreed to stay on over the next six months, and I think it will work out for the best."
Dewart's experience raises the question of whether a buyer can be ACTE president, given the significant commitment required to run an increasingly global organization. Koch told Business Travel News he did not rule out buyer presidents in the future, saying ACTE is responding to the heavy workload by increasingly making all board members roving ambassadors who share the international travel duties. "One person cannot do it all," he said.
Meanwhile, Crum said he looks forward to the challenge of serving as ACTE's 11th president and during his tenure will keep his objectives in line with ACTE's current focus. "I'd like to see us continue to focus on education and best practices," he said. "With all the data that's out there, being able to translate that data into knowledge is imperative."
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Environmental awareness was a dominant ACTE conference theme. British Airways pledged funding for a renewable energy project in the developing world to offset the carbon emissions of delegates attending the meeting. ACTE also made efforts to lower the event's carbon footprint through such measures as producing white papers, press releases and other written materials in digital form only.
However, the most eco-conscious gesture of the conference must have been made by the aptly named Jonathan Green, manager for sustainable travel at the U.K. Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. Green traveled from London to Barcelona and back by train, a journey of 18 hours each way, compared with two hours by air.
ACTE president Koch said environmental credentials would be a factor in determining the location of the association's future conferences. These include public transportation from the airport, the green-ness of hotels and the willingness of host cities to work on sustainability with ACTE.
Consideration of the green issue raised the question: Should ACTE stop staging conferences if corporate travel professionals are to prove their commitment to environmentalism? Koch told BTN he could not see that happening, but said: "We will still need to get together to see each other face to face, but it will be a different model. In five years, there will still be a schedule of ACTE conferences, but the structure and number could be different."
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With buyers usually having just four to five minutes to make their case during a board meeting to demonstrate their value to their employers, stressing savings is not necessarily the answer, said American Express Europe, Middle East and Africa vice president for business development Pieter Rieder during a conference educational session.
"For C-level executives, the most important priorities are managing risk and generally giving shareholder value, so we find we now spend a huge amount of time talking to them about corporate social responsibility issues, like safety and security, Sarbanes-Oxley and the environment," said Rieder. "Until relatively recently, it was a very straightforward discussion on cost savings. Now, it is on a much wider range of areas. Buyers need to find the area that will connect with senior executives, as well as one or two sponsors on the board."
Rieder added that safety and security are rising particularly fast up the agenda in the United Kingdom, owing to corporate manslaughter legislation working its passage through Parliament. "Nothing focuses the mind of a board member more than the risk of going to jail," he said.
As a result, Amex is seeing clients review their policies to ensure they fall in line with obligations to duty of care. Examples include preventing travelers from renting a car after a long-haul flight until they have had a night's sleep and insisting rental cars are fitted with satellite navigation.
Another panelist, Agilent Technologies European travel manager Tom Ellis, said board-level interest in the safety aspects of policy could be extremely beneficial for the entire travel program. "While you get the attention of the board to change policy on these issues, you can take the opportunity to make other changes at the same time," he suggested.
Asked how buyers can measure the value of risk avoidance, Rieder pointed to three factors: lower insurance premiums, brand reputation and the cost of payments should the company be found liable for employee injury or death. Mark Avery, head of business services and chairman of the U.K. & Ireland's Institute of Travel Management, confirmed the first of these. "I buy insurance for PricewaterhouseCoopers and there are savings to be made around risk mitigation," he said. Avery also said that risk management is one of the PwC board's main interests in travel. However, he added: "For us, the problem [of engagement] is not at board level, it is at traveler level. Many do not realize the importance of safety and security until something goes wrong."
As a result, PwC, like many other businesses, is battling to win support for its travel program, especially in persuading travelers to use the appointed travel management company.
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Independent aviation consultant Rigas Doganis at the conference said to watch for three major trends in the airline business. The first, he said, was that "you will have to face up to continuing instability among network carriers." Doganis argued that in spite of high load factors and—in the case of U.S. airlines—cutting employee numbers by 37 percent since 2000, carriers still struggle to make money, suggesting they remain structurally flawed.
Doganis argued that mainstream airlines need to further rationalize their networks and that there ultimately will be only three to five of them in each region of the world. He also predicted only two to three low-cost carriers will survive in each region and "there will be increased variations in fares between carriers due to further liberalization and alliances."