Success in Business and Travel Requires Leadership, Vision and Cohesion

During GBTA Conference 2016 Frankfurt in Partnership with VDR, GBTA Europe President Gehan Colliander delivered a speech about the importance of partnerships for GBTA in Europe. Read the full speech below.

Success in business and in travel requires leadership, vision and cohesion. The travel industry exemplifies this cohesion and togetherness, with buyers and sellers working hand-in-hand to achieve efficiencies for both the organization and the individual traveler.

It is all about balance!

GBTA Europe succeeds because of its very special relationships with its national partner associations.

Our partnership with VDR , the Austrian; Danish; Finnish; Norwegian and Swedish business travel associations, The Netherlands business travel association as well as the UK & Ireland Institute of Travel & Meetings have allowed us to create the largest business travel conference in Europe.

The GBTA Europe Partnership Council plays a vital role in guiding what we do in Europe and acts as the perfect environment for sharing of best practices and ideas among all the member associations.

Following on from the success of our last three conferences in Germany, we are working with VDR to extend its partnership with GBTA for not only next year’s Frankfurt conference in 2017, but also a further event in 2018.

We are also proud to be collaborating with our other partners throughout the year on a series of events. We will be partnering with our four Nordic Business Travel Associations for the Nordic Business Travel Summit in February; with the Institute of Travel Management in the UK on their Annual Conference in May 2017 and with the Netherlands Association of Travel Management on their conference in September.

One of GBTA’s main goals is to deliver the best education and resources within the business travel industry. Our educational offerings continue to expand, and 2017 promises to be GBTA Europe’s biggest year ever in that regard.

And in response to overwhelming demand, we again will be offering the Fundamentals of Business Travel Management to the Nordics supplementing our extended education programme in the UK.

This, is in addition to our burgeoning advocacy programme that Mike and Ingo will update you on tomorrow and the work of our volunteers that Christle referenced yesterday.

GBTA, with its partners are working hard on your behalf – to provide a ‘balanced’ suite of benefits.

So, I would like to thank you again for your participation, and wish you a very successful conference.