Check-In with Suzanne

Resolutions for a New Year in Global Business Travel

It’s with optimism for what’s ahead that I pen this first Check-In for 2023. While many business travel-related activities wound down over the holidays, the travel industry did not. Ours is an industry that never sleeps, and many professionals worked to serve millions of travelers and trips around the world over the end-of-year holidays. Connecting people is what our industry does best − we are grateful for all who make it happen every day.   

This is my first week getting back to business and it might be for you too. It is a time when we are thinking about resolutions, operational planning, and annual outlooks. My resolution for GBTA in 2023 is likely not surprising: to positively impact you where you need us most.  

Working alongside our members, partners, teams, and professionals, GBTA will continue to innovate and serve the global business travel industry – fostering our community, bringing learning and professional development to life, and providing a platform for the “many voices” within our industry as we focus on advocacy. As you think about your business, professional resolutions and goals, GBTA is here to help you start strong in the new year. 

Registration is open for the 2023 GBTA Annual Convention to be held in Dallas, Texas, August 13-15. Planning is well underway for this largest gathering of business travel professionals around the world. We look forward to another jam-packed event offering everything you love and some new innovations and surprises – take advantage of the early bird/best registration rate before January 17.    

Additionally, our recently announced revised Global Leadership Professional^® (GLP) Program can now be accomplished in an achievable five months rather than the prior format spanning two years, and our popular Fundamentals of Business Travel Management course is now free for GBTA members.  

We are also pivoting our monthly GBTA Business Travel Recovery polls to now-quarterly GBTA Business Travel Outlook polls, aligning to our industry’s evolution. Thank you for your ongoing response to our polls. We hope you’ll continue to support these research efforts which provide critical insights and a collective “voice” for global business travel. Watch for the next poll questionnaire to go out shortly – marking the 30th GBTA poll in this series – and we’ll publish the results later this month. 

Lastly, my Check-In column here will move from a weekly to a twice-monthly column (second and fourth Tuesdays) as we bring forward more voices and viewpoints in this space. 

Here’s to a happy, productive, successful 2023 for all. 

Suzanne