Learn, Network and Vote at GBTA’s Convention

GBTA’s annual convention (Aug. 4-7 in San Diego) offers great opportunities to learn about the corporate travel industry, network with peers and vote on the future of GBTA.

I’m teaching this travel data workshop on Sunday, Aug. 4th from 9am to about 3pm, and this advanced airline sourcing session on Wednesday, August 7th at 11:45am.  On Monday the 5th at 9am Evan Konwiser and I will present on The End and Future of Managed Travel.

Managed Travel 2.0 has come a long way since Evan and I presented the concept at GBTA’s 2012 convention.  We’ll bring fresh and surprising views from

GBTA’s Problematic IP Policy

GBTA has implemented a strong – and fundamentally wrong –  intellectual property (IP) policy. I’m raising the issue here to ask your help in getting GBTA back on track.  I’ve run out of patience trying to do this on my own.

GBTA’s  new IP policy affects anyone who:

• Speaks at a GBTA event
• Contributes to a GBTA committee
• Provides volunteer services to GBTA

In short, it affects many of the people reading this blog.

Problems for Presenters: GBTA’s policy, read literally, gives GBTA broad license rights in any intellectual property a GBTA presenter has ever created – whether for GBTA or any other party.  This is no ordinary speaker release form.  The language is surprisingly and needlessly broad.

Problems for Committee Members and other Contributors: It gets worse.  GBTA’s new policy requires you to transfer – as in give away – all your rights to whatever IP you may develop for or contribute to GBTA – and potentially all your other IP you’ve ever created.

On The Road to Education

There likely won’t be any new posts here for the next two weeks, as I’ll be busy delivering travel procurement training in Asia and the U.S. For those interested in the topic, here’s where I’ll be:

17 May near Denver for the Hotel Sourcing Workshop, sponsored by the Rocky Mountain Business Travel Association

23-24 May in Singapore, 26-27 May in Manila, and 30-31 May in Hong Kong to deliver a two-day course on travel procurement principles and travel program globalization. This is an invitation-only course sponsored by Amadeus and Carlson Wagonlit, with support from the Global Business Travel Association.

8 June in Chicago for a one-day workshop on travel procurement sponsored by the Chicago Business Travel Association and GBTA

Then a nice break at home before going to Indianapolis on 23 June for a speech at the Ohio Valley Business Travel Association meeting. I’ll cover the topic of selling into procurement – a challenge that most travel suppliers are facing.

I hope to see some of you at some of these events.  If you’d like to meet before or after, drop me a note!

Bom Dia, Brazil!

Travel truly is priceless.  How else can you get such a clear view of places, of people?  I’m back from the LACCTE travel conference in Sao Paulo with fresh understandings about managed travel in Latin America Brazil – and implications for us Norte Americanos.

Lesson Number One – don’t confuse Brazil and “Latin America”.  One is a country, the other