Check-In with Suzanne

What A Year It’s Been for Business Travel and GBTA

Season’s greetings to our global business travel community!

Recently I completed my last business trip of the year – an “around the planet” journey from New York City to India, then to Australia and New Zealand, and back to New York City. What a great way to round out the year with our Asia Pacific team and members!

Along the way, many of you reminded me how much you value the GBTA Daily News Brief as part of your daily industry reading. Thank you for making it a habit—and kudos to our global communications team for curating the headlines that matter most to business travel professionals every weekday.

As we say adieu to 2025, I hope you are feeling as positive as I am about what our association does for the industry. It’s been a great year and 2026 will continue that momentum – even as we acknowledge there are constantly new challenges put forward within our industry for which we need to take a stand.

Here are some of GBTA’s top highlights for 2025 – all made possible by you, our members and supplier supporters, in helping us achieve our mission centered on community, learning and advocacy:

• Regional Events Driving Connection and Growth
  From conferences in Toronto, Singapore, Mexico City and Hamburg – to Summits in India, Australia, France and Italy and buyer-only forums around the world – our GBTA gatherings delivered record attendance, more new travel manager attendees, sold out expos, and higher satisfaction scores than ever, reflecting the growing engagement and influence of our global community.
• Member-driven Governance
  This year marked milestones in association governance and smooth transitions across our volunteer leadership, including on the global Board of Directors, our more than 30 topical committees and regional advisory boards, and the Allied Leadership and U.S. Chapter Presidents Councils. We added national and regional advisory boards in APAC and the Middle East. Finally, for the first time, voting members from Asia Pacific and Latin America joined our global Board of Directors —strengthening representation worldwide.
• Investing in Your Member Experience
  With Board support, our GBTA team has been laying the groundwork for fundamental systems investments and upgrades to enhance future member and learner experience, which you will all benefit from in 2026 and beyond.
• Advocacy in Action
  From policy dialogues in Brussels and Washington D.C. to launching accessibility toolkits, awarding scholarships, investing in NextGen through Ladders, expanding WINiT chapters, and advancing sustainability initiatives, GBTA continues to champion industry advocacy, resilience and responsibility.
• A Convention to Remember
  Our annual event in Denver set the bar high – the fullest Expo, buzz and engagement, buyer-only networking, a first-time VentureConnect program and business-relevant education and speakers. Your survey feedback confirmed that the venue, scheduling, and our experimentation in programming are yielding an overall experience – and connections – you truly value.

I’m incredibly proud of our global GBTA team and member volunteer leaders who made these achievements possible! (We would love for more of you to explore volunteer opportunities, too!)

Like many of you, we’re ready to wrap up 2025 in a big bow, take time off with our family and friends, and get ready for a 2026 that promises to be full of networking, education, challenges to solve, and opportunities to tackle.

Wishing you safe and joyful travels—both for work and leisure—until we meet again in the new year. Best wishes for a happy holiday season and here’s to a successful start to 2026!

Suzanne

Industry Spotlight

Convention 2026
Don't Wait: Early Bird Rates Expire This Week

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