Last Week in Review

The Last Week in Review keeps you up-to-date on the latest business travel news.

Last week’s GBTA poll on how North American businesses are reacting to the Ebola situation continues to make news with coverage in Roll Call. GBTA Executive Director Mike McCormick once again spoke with the New York Times about the importance of getting the situation under control. Ebola continues to be a fluid situation in the states: the Los Angeles Times reported that the two Dallas nurses and the NBC cameraman are recovering nicely, but CNN reports a new case involved a New York-based doctor who recently returned from Guinea.

 

Shifting away from Ebola, Reuters reported U.S. airlines have raised their domestic fares by $2 on average last week, marking the first industry wide increase in half a year. We predicted this increase in our most recent U.S. BTI Report.

 

The Atlantic’s City Lab chatted with Amtrak President and CEO Joseph Boardman about the state of U.S. Passenger Rail. In this candid interview, Boardman discussed ridership growth, why they need huge amounts of federal taxpayer money to maintain costly long-distance operations and on-time performance woes.

 

Looking to beef up your smartphone with useful Business Travel apps? Check out CIO’s list of the 15 Must-Have Android and iOS Apps for Business Travel. We’re partial to the list at GBTA, mostly because it includes our BTI numbers and a quote from GBTA Vice President of Research Joe Bates.

 

Lots of people are taking issue with Olive Garden these days, but business travelers are not among them. CNBC reported that Olive Garden took the top spot in a new set of restaurant rankings, according to a quarterly report from Certify analyzing corporate expense spending. Chick-fil-A, Chipotle Mexican Grill, Panera Bread and Dunkin’ Donuts rounded out the list.

 

In conference news, GBTA hosted our 3^rd annual successful GBTA Conference Latin America at the beginning of the month. This week, we announced a record-setting 403 travel professionals from 11 Latin American countries and the U.S. attended the event. Read more at Hospitality Net.

 

Travel Biz Monitor previewed next week’s ITB Asia Conference, featuring GBTA. We will be on hand to preview our latest economic forecasts of business travel spend for China and the Asia Pacific region, as well as offer new insights to support professionals looking to expand in the Asian travel market.

Finally, some fun futuristic news for you: the Chicago Tribune reported on what passengers want for future travel. According to a new report by Airline Passenger Experience Association, passengers want to be thoroughly connected and wired in the next ten years.