Meeting News - July 7, 2008 - (Page 6)

Inside the Meetings Industry Edited by Rayna Katz rayna.katz@nielsen.com ACTE Fights DHS, Adds Planner Education to Conference More than 1,200 travel-management executives came to Washington D.C. in May to discuss the precarious state of business travel at the Association of Corporate Travel Managers’ (ACTE) global education conference. With airlines in particularly deep trouble, ACTE announced at the show its alliance with the International Airline Association (IATA) to oppose a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) proposal calling for biometric (fingerprint) exit procedures for foreign visitors at the nation’s airports. “Expecting the airlines to shoulder the financial burden [estimated between $400 million and $1 billion] of implementing biometrics is unreasonable—as is passing along to business travelers a huge cost increase through ticket surcharges or taxes,” said ACTE President Richard Crum. “As this is a ACTE’s matter of national security, the money should come from the general tax fund.” Added IATA vice president Douglas Lavin, “IATA strongly opposes the proposal that airline employees collect fingerprints of foreign nationals. We believe immigration is a government responsibility, and that this process will result in significant hassle for passengers in terms of airport congestion, delays, and missed connections.” ACTE does not oppose the concept of exit biometrics for foreign visitors. But DHS’ proposal leaves program design and implementation up to the air carriers—making no guarantee the process will be the same at every airport, or at different locations with6 MeetingNews July 7, 2008 al, the sessions were “Roadmap to Best-in-Class Strategic Meetings Management” and “Taking Meetings Global: Strategic Meetings Management in the Rest of the World.” Also, a new educational alliance with the McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University generated three new sessions addressing procurement issues. Said ACTE Executive Director Susan Gurley: “We’ve recognized the increased focus on procurement and supply-chain management in corporate travel, and felt it necessary to reach beyond our collective wisdom to an institution with research-based knowledge.” Gordon Swartz, associate dean of the school, added, “The consolidation of travel industry suppliers has far-reaching implications on supply-chain manageCrum speaks out on treatment of visitors. ment. This partnership educates members on the houses more than 450 white papers, various risks.” reports, presentations, surveys, and Finally, citing her ability to develother documents relating to the busi- op a critical program in record time, ness travel profession. Further, it is a ACTE conferred its Corporate Social free resource to members and non- Responsibility Award on Cynthia Shumate, director of travel services members alike. Greeley Koch, chairman of the for The Estee Lauder Companies. Global Centre for Research and Edu- Over the past two years, Shumate cation, said the portal addresses became an authority on recognizing “everything from online booking and green opportunities in business travtraveler tracking to procurement el, and developed a questionnaire for methods and advanced travel man- hotel RFPs to measure green initiatives used by her firm’s hotel vendors. agement practices.” On a related note, two educational Among the show’s educational sessions, two were geared specifically sessions dealt with the greening of towards meetings, and offered Certi- travel management, and British Airfied Meeting Professional (CMP) ways partnered with ACTE to meascredits to attendees. Led by members ure, minimize, and offset the conferof Meeting Professionals Internation- ence’s carbon footprint. in the same airport. Also at the conference, ACTE’s Global Centre for Research and Education announced the launch of ACTE Connect, a onestop resource providing the industry’s intellectual capital, research, and best practices. The platform, which can be accessed through www.ACTE.org, Planner Survey Finds Hotels Lacking on Some Meeting Tasks A recent study of meeting planners said hotels are best at tasks that happen during a meeting or event but lacking in the handling of many pre-and post-event chores. The “Using Meeting Planner Feedback to Understand Critical Issues,” survey was conducted in May and written by Dr. Daniel Mount, associate professor of hospitality management at Penn State University, and Dallas-based hospitality consulting/performance measurement firm UniFocus. It combined each meeting element’s importance—based on planners’ rankings—with survey respondents’ ratings of execution by venues of that element. The research produced a list of venues’ critical strengths and one of their challenges. Among the most telling results: Planners ranked bill reconciliation ninth in importance as an event element—but when combined with planners’ typically low performance rating of venues for that task, billing rises to second in the list of venues’ critical challenges. Also, effective pre-conference meetings rank highest in importance, but near the bottom of planners’ performance ratings, making this element the most critical challenge for venues to conquer. The third most critical challenge for venues was the perception of overall value. As for the critical strengths of venues, planners said banquet events, other meal and break service, and conference and catering staffs were at the top. Full results are at http://iacc.car dinalware.com/assets/UsingMeet ingPlannerFeedback.pdf r —Section written by Robert Carey www.meetingnews.com http://www.ACTE.org http://iacc.cardinalware.com/assets/UsingMeetingPlannerFeedback.pdf http://iacc.cardinalware.com/assets/UsingMeetingPlannerFeedback.pdf http://iacc.cardinalware.com/assets/UsingMeetingPlannerFeedback.pdf http://www.meetingnews.com

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Meeting News - July 7, 2008

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