Challenged by Airlines Reporting Corp. executive Mike Premo to grow the number of ARC-accredited Corporate Travel Departments, several CTD operatives have banded together to form their own association to do just that. The Corporate Travel Department Association's mission is to "support the growth of CTDs," share best practices and benchmarking, and provide education, according to steering committee chairperson Kathy Hall-Zientek, manager of travel services for Moog Inc., an ARC-designated CTD for five years.
If applications filed with New York state regulators and the federal Internal Revenue Service are approved, CTDA expects to begin operations by late May or early June, Hall-Zientek said.
The committee has determined that the association will hold a one-day seminar for CTDs after the next ARC-sponsored CTD Conference slated for November. It also decided that membership dues will be $150 per year.
The idea for the association emerged during the annual CTD meeting held last November. For the first time, the event was planned by ARC. As veteran CTDs talked with prospects, Hall-Zientek said she recognized the need for a more formal group to share insight on the benefits of this designation. Later, after Premo told the CTDs gathered that it wasn't ARC's responsibility to ensure the growth of CTDs, Hall-Zientek said she and others took on the challenge.
Asked why ARC doesn't do more to publicize the CTD program, ARC vice president of marketing, sales and customer care Premo said he told the group, "ARC really doesn't have much skin in this game. We have no financial motivation to do it. We like the CTD program and put it out there at the request of a number of important customers. We will continue to support them, operate the conference and continue to provide the certification and reporting. But really, the growth of that community is up to the CTDs themselves, not ARC."
Later, CTD representatives discussed the need to form their own association and "every single person in the room was interested," Hall-Zientek said. Overwhelming interest to help forge the new association forced organizers to draw names out of a hat to select 11 CTDs to serve on a steering committee to draft bylaws, develop a mission statement and file incorporation papers for the group. Other than Wal-Mart, other CTD representatives on the committee did not want to be identified, she noted.
As CTDs talked, "we recognized that we weren't getting together often enough to share our experiences. Those that are CTDs have a lot of experience under their belt," Hall-Zientek added.
"We are not organizing to be a buying group," Hall-Zientek told Management.travel. "We are not ruling that out, but that wasn't the intention." Nevertheless, as suppliers heard of plans for the new association, she said, several have contacted her to offer consortium pricing, funding and more. She said she told all to wait.
Hall-Zientek has sent emails to 150 ARC-accredited CTDs or prospects, and only a few said they weren't interested in future messages.
At the request of corporations, ARC formed the CTD program in 1999. While the number of accredited CTDs gradually rose to 214 at year-end 2007, Premo today said 143 CTDs are active and 19 applications are in process. The 19 is the "most applications I've seen since I've been here," he added. Premo joined ARC in 2006.
ARC took over management of the seventh annual CTD Conference, but operated it as transparently as possible, Premo said. A steering committee of CTDs reviewed the budget and all sponsorships, he added. The conference was launched and run for five years by Eos Airlines senior vice president of sales for the Americas Andy Menkes, who earned the first CTD designation while he was travel manager for Republic Bank. After he sold his consulting practice in 2006 to Hogg Robinson Group, Menkes turned the conference over to consultant Bob Langsfeld of The Corporate Solutions Group.
Meanwhile, as part of "internal committee restructuring," ARC recently consolidated three separate committees for airlines, agencies and CTDs into a single ARC advisory board, Premo said. The Joint Advisory Board for the Airline Reporting Agreement (JABARA) will operate as a subcommittee of the new advisory board, he added. The new advisory board is slated to hold its first meeting April 17. CTDs will hold one at-large seat on the board, and the new CTD association will hold another seat.