Course Overview


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The Certificate in Corporate Travel Execution, in collaboration with Cornell University’s Executive Education Division, is a tailored education program designed for both corporate buyers overseeing managed travel programs and travel product and service suppliers. This program offers a virtual classroom experience focused on key business travel topics such as accounting, finance, human resources, sales strategy, risk and legal issues, and travel procurement. The course will be instructed by expert Cornell University professors specializing in business, travel, and hospitality.

Who is it for

This program is ideal for travel professionals seeking to advance their knowledge in travel and business best practices. While holding a Global Travel Professional® (GTP) certification is recommended, it is not required. Upon completion of the course, participants will receive a Certificate from Cornell University Executive Education and GBTA Academy, as well as 16 GTP® Recertification credits.

How it Works

This virtual classroom course will be completely online, and participants will be required to commit to two 2-hour sessions per month from September through December. In the event that a participant is unable to attend a “live” class, recordings will be available upon request/approval. At the end of the course, each professor will present a single essay question to enable participants to demonstrate their knowledge gained.

Course Length
4 Months

Class Size
Under 35 Students

Format
100% Online

Model
Instructor-led

Upcoming Course

Next course dates are in 2026

$2,500
Member Price


$3,000
Non-Member Price

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Course modules and key learning outcomes

This session will cover three core areas: (1) Covid 19 religious and disability accommodations; (2) negligence and other tort liabilities; and (3) contracts: formation, regular damages and liquidated damages. These three areas of the law affect the day-to-day operations of your organizations, and leaders must have tools to understand the framework, so that they can recognize the risk, analyze if it is applicable, and then either make changes to avoid liability or consult with counsel. In addition, because Covid accommodations is

just developing, leaders must be comfortable applying the framework so that they can understand and operationalize the regulations as they are proffered. While negligence and contracts are not new concepts, the law continues to develop and change, and leaders need to understand how to apply and comply with the inevitable changes. Before concluding the sessions, we will provide fact patterns where participants will have to spot the legal risk, state the law, and apply the fact provided to that law and determine whether or not the employer is in compliance.

Key Learning Outcomes:
  • Understanding, and being able to apply, Federal, State, and Local Anti-Discrimination Law requiring accommodations for religion and disability
  • Understanding, and being able to apply, the four Elements of Negligence (duty, breach, cause, damage)
  • Understanding and being able to apply the law with regard to Formation of contracts (offer, acceptance, consideration), regular contract Damages and Liquidated Damages

This session will provide you with an understanding of what critical thinking is and how to apply critical thinking concepts to the process of strategic problem solving so that your recommendations are well-reasoned, likely to be well-received by the decision-maker/other key stakeholders, and, most importantly, help further the overarching objectives of the organization you are serving.

Key Learning Outcomes:
  • Understand what issues are best suited to critically thoughtful analysis vs. intuitive response to help overcome “analysis paralysis” in yourself and others and build awareness of what obstacles exist to thinking critically
  • Help team members distinguish knowledge from assumption, identify gaps in information that may bear upon the question presented; and decide when to move forward with a recommendation vs. gathering more information and continuing analysis
  • Approach problems in a systematic manner that takes proper account of strategic context, addresses problems at the root cause vs. symptom level, and takes full and fair account of the likeliest objections and most significant risks of the contemplated solution

Money and the availability of it drive most all business decisions, thus it is critical to understand the performance measures that influence organizational decision making. This session will allow you to gain confidence in understanding financial reporting and interpreting financial statements. Demonstrating this knowledge allows for productive and effective communication with decision makers at all levels of the organization and will enhance your ability to contribute more fully to your company’s overall success.  

Key Learning Outcomes:
  • Read and interpret the three main financial statements for a publicly traded company.
  • Assess the key determinants of profitability, financial position, and cash flows from financial statements.
  • Link key metrics in the lodging industry to the results reported in the financial statements.
  • Gain confidence in interpreting and communicating your observations from information reported in the financial statements.

This session will provide you with the tools to make better operational and strategic decisions. Specifically, we will focus on decisions that involve limited resources and how best to allocate them to the most profitable uses. We will also review best practices related to operating and capital budgeting to understand the trend toward investments in fixed costs.

Key Learning Outcomes:
  • Utilize cost data to make strategic decisions.
  • Understand break-even point, margin of safety and operating leverage.
  • Differentiate between operating and capital budgets and understand the trend toward fixed costs.
  • Gain confidence in interpreting and communicating your observations from cost and performance data.

It is important that leaders have tools and resources to improve their ability to create, sustain, and institutionalize inclusive climates for all their constituents. To realize the benefits from inclusion activities, initiatives and programs, leaders must be prepared to address the challenges we face in the broadly diverse global hospitality, tourism and travel industry.

This session is designed to help participants learn how to manage the ever-evolving needs for inclusion programs in our industry. Theoretical and experiential approaches to understanding, building, and managing inclusion initiatives will be explored through a set of selected readings. Participants will learn about leadership strategies for the modern organization and how to better understand, build and manage inclusion practices, policies, communication, and strategies which invite all people in versus making them feel excluded or blamed.

Key Learning Outcomes:
  • Discuss how DEI has evolved over the years in their businesses
  • Demonstrate how to incorporate inclusion in their standard operating procedures
  • Create and execute a corporate culture that leadership and management model for the organization
  • Build strong communication strategies to inform, train, and teach constituents about inclusion, and how it connects to both company success and creating a bias free workplace

In this competitive strategy session, you will examine the total enterprise, the industry, and the competitive environment in which it operates. The goal is to develop your mastery of the analytical thinking and tools necessary to perform analyses of the firm, the industry and competitors. Specific focus will be placed on understanding a firm’s operating environment, how to generate value for customers, and competitive positioning in a global industry. Overall, the session puts you in the role of senior managers who must balance the opportunities and risks associated with making changes to a firm within the hospitality industry.

Strategic management is a process in which organizations analyze and learn from their internal and external environments, establish strategic direction, and then make choices, all in an effort to satisfy key stakeholders and produce above average rates of return. How firms formulate, implement, and evaluate strategies is the focus we will take in this session. Strategists are required to specify an organization’s objectives, develop plans to achieve the objectives and allocate the resources to implement the plans.

Key Learning Outcomes:
  • Know what strategy is and how the strategic management process works
  • Demonstrate how to identify strategic problems and make recommendations for improvement using a comprehensive set of theories and business examples
  • Know how to effectively introduce strategic change

Negotiation is not just for buying and selling: we all negotiate every day as we navigate and address our needs and desires alongside those of others. Effective negotiators balance collaborative and competitive tactics and factor in the interpersonal relationships to secure profitable deals for themselves while also building relationships and giving the other a good deal. In this workshop, participants will look at assumptions and habits of negotiation and learn new ways to think about it.

We will focus on shifting from thinking about the negotiation as a competition for a fixed pool of resources, to thinking of it as a problem-solving collaboration aimed at maximizing gain for both parties. A role-play negotiation exercise will provide you with an embodied feeling for this shift. Note: While accurate valuation of the negotiable elements is critical, the session will focus instead on tactics. Also, we will present a scenario related to travel but not one that is specific to your current roles, as the latter would distract from the desired learning.

Key Learning Outcomes:
  • Address conflict in a way that strengthens relationships
  • Build deals that maximize profit on _both_ sides of the table
  • Navigate the terrain of the negotiation conversation(s)
  • Plan a negotiation strategy

When it comes to choosing a supplier, there is more to think about than just the bottom line. In this course, you will consider supplier evaluation and selection in a holistic way. By evaluating your organization’s strategies and tactics, you will identify the purchasing factors that are important to you, and that should be applied to your evaluations and decisions. You will explore what makes a “good” supplier and identify how much time to commit to sourcing requirements. And you will examine how your organization’s goals and objectives interact with sourcing requirements and supplier selection. After developing a supplier selection and evaluation tool, you will consider the importance of routine screening and come up with contingency plans should your supplier choices need to be changed

Key Learning Outcomes:
  • Identify key sourcing requirements for a supplier selection need at your company
  • Rank requirements and create a supplier selection and evaluation too
  • Select appropriate sourcing strategies based on organizational objectives and operating conditions/characteristics
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What You’ll Earn

  • Certificate in Corporate Travel Execution from GBTA and Cornell University
  • Use of the CCTE Designation (ex: John Smith, CCTE)
  • 16 GTP Recertification Credits

Questions

Interested in a specific course? Fill out the form and let us know how we can help. Email pd@gbta.org for further assistance.