Taxman: Taxes and Fees on Travel Reaching the Tipping Point

It’s Tax Day in the United States – the dreaded day for many on which individual income tax returns are due to the federal government. The Beatles 1966 hit song “Taxman” tells a story of despair at being overtaxed to the breaking point. If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street If you try…

White House Business Council Briefing on Travel & Tourism
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White House Business Council Briefing on Travel & Tourism

Last week I participated in the White House Business Council briefing on travel and tourism in the U.S. Administration officials gave an update on the economy and discussed how the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and other Agencies work to promote travel and tourism from, to and within the United States. The meeting was an…

Smisek Returns to GBTA Convention
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Smisek Returns to GBTA Convention

United Airlines’ Jeff Smisek was a featured speaker on the “Sunday Night Live” welcome session at GBTA’s 2011 Convention in Denver fresh off United’s merger with Continental, making it the world’s largest airline at the time. Jeff told us about his plans for United to not just be the world’s largest airline, but to become…

Latest Forecast Shows Good News for Western Europe

Today, GBTA released our latest GBTA BTI™ Outlook – Western Europe report, a semi-annual analysis of the five most critical business travel markets in Europe: Germany, the UK, France, Italy and Spain. These five markets together form the lion’s share of business travel in the region acting as a good barometer of the health of…

TSA Pre✓™ Promotional Toolkit
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TSA Pre✓™ Promotional Toolkit

Downloadable Assets Since the roll-out of TSA Pre✓™ GBTA has met with the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) numerous times discussing ways to provide platforms that easily answer the many questions about TSA Pre✓™. TSA has listened to you and the concerns we have raised and created a Toolkit that allows you to take official material and…

Looking Up: Business Travel to Fly Higher in 2014

We released our latest U.S. quarterly forecast last week and it is filled with positive news! Business travel spending finished out 2013 with better than expected growth and is poised for even greater growth in 2014. There has been a great deal of media interest in this report and I found many reporters asking me…

Weather or Not

Weather or Not

I was invited to speak at the Wisconsin Business Travel Association’s Education Day in early January, just as the polar vortex was engulfing 26 states in wind-chill warnings or watches.  Wisconsin, of course, is a state known for its cold weather; it was in the low teens when I arrived, and the wind chill made it…