MONDAY, AUGUST 15, 2005 10:00-11:15AM
EX1 – Maximizing your Personal Off-Season
Ever wonder how star athletes dominate their sport, have annual performance improvement, and excel in a competitive market place? Ever wonder what would happen if you incorporated what professional athletes have practiced for decades, an off-season? What is an Off-season? An Off-Season is an annual break with a defined time line dedicated to retool, regroup, refresh and refocus for optimal performance improvement.
In this entertaining, inspirational and dynamic program, learn how to facilitate a personal and corporate off-season, what to evaluate in an off-season, how to determine how long your off-season should last and when to take an off-season. The benefits will be increased profits, a balanced life, renewed innovation, enhanced creativity and industry dominance guaranteed. If you have been looking for something new that you have never been exposed to before in the corporate environment…..This is it!
Suitable for: All Attendees
EX2 – Transforming Travel into a Strategic Business Service
Some of the hottest industry debates today are over topics such as online vs. traditional TMC, GDS vs. direct connect, savings vs. service, local/regional vs. mega agency, etc. However, these debates on individual issues miss the larger point of what is happening in business travel. The industry is innovating and moving – some would say converging and merging – toward a day when business travel capabilities are powerful enough to not only meet travel savings goals, but concretely help companies meet strategic objectives in key areas such as productivity, sales, marketing, business development, employee satisfaction and others. The purpose of this session is to challenge attendees to view business travel in a new strategic way by educating them on how to make this change in philosophy, informing them of the types and combinations of services that will help them realize this vision, and discussing the real benefits they, their companies and their traveling employees can earn by taking this new perspective. In the end, attendees will come away with a new viewpoint and ideas on how to prove the value of their program to their leadership.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
GL1 – Consolidating Global Fulfillment Capabilities
Presenter: NBTA Aviation Committee
Companies are moving toward global programs, but is full global fulfillment a reality? Industry professionals will weigh in on the relative opportunities and challenges including the current gaps inhibiting a true global process and the benefits and challenges of that process. Learn what current and future options are on the table and what corporations need to consider if global fulfillment becomes a reality.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
GL2 –The Impact of IATA Fare Rule Changes
The changes implemented by IATA in January, 2005, are the result of IATA’s intent to simplify fare construction and pricing policy to better accommodate the distribution of international airline tickets. This seminar will highlight the most significant changes and explain the impact to travel management.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
BS1 – Ensuring Accountability
In the quickly changing, crowded marketplace of corporate travel, many find themselves working with multiple vendors or partners. To minimize costs, with so many parties involved, how do you establish ownership of accountability and success? Corporate travel managers, for example, can typically have relationships with a TMC, online booking company, a GDS, a multitude of suppliers, and many others. And, these players keep changing owners. Who you’re working with this month may be owned by someone else the next. These complex and increasingly technology driven relationships reduce person-to-person contact, cause confusion and open the door for a decisive lack of accountability. This manifests itself in increased costs and lower traveler satisfaction. This benefits no one.
The purpose of this session is to discuss the importance and real benefits of accountability between players in corporate travel, and to educate attendees on ways they can ensure a higher level of accountability in their work. By providing key insights and real world examples, attendees will come away with ideas and inspiration to build more accountability in their key work relationships.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
BS2 – Critical and Innovative Thinking
The Wharton School
Making decisions in an atmosphere of increasing time pressure, uncertainty, and conflicting advice creates challenges for any manager. Making sound leadership decisions in crisis situations is even more demanding. Critical & Innovative Thinking focuses on how to frame complex issues appropriately the first time. It presents a roadmap for making winning decisions every time, by alerting managers to common thinking traps and by offering practical remedies.
Suitable for: All Attendees
ID1 – 2005 Legislative Update
Presenter: Legislative Advisory Council
This seminar will help you understand how Congress and various government departments affect the business travel industry, focusing on today’s hot issues. This seminar will also discuss how Capitol Hill interacts with NBTA to develop policy and how you can lobby Congress by working through NBTA and NBTAPAC.
Suitable for: All Attendees
ID2 – Deciphering Airline Contracts & the Impact of Fare Restructuring
With airline fare restructuring taking place, now more than ever it is imperative for companies to thoroughly understand their airline contracts. Corporations can significantly reduce overall air travel expenses through an effective air program. The key to success involves managing air costs over the full program lifecycle, from strategy development to negotiations to active management at the point of sale. This panel of travel managers, airline executives and TMC executives will address the steps involved.
Suitable for: Intermediate
SP1 – Travel and Procurement: Getting the Best Of Both Worlds
This session will examine the strengths and weaknesses of traditional travel and procurement approaches to managing corporate travel programs. Key issues include methods for identifying savings opportunities, determining optimal sourcing strategies, translating data into actionable initiatives, measuring savings and managing the ongoing
spend.
Suitable for: Intermediate
SP2 – Applying Reverse Auctions to Complex Selection Processes
The session will demonstrate how available systems may not only influence the pricing available to travel management professionals but assist in the evaluation of the important qualitative issues that influence the buying decision. A case history will be presented that will lead the audience through the entire review and auction process. There is a common misperception that the auction approach compromises the qualitative in favor of the commodity-oriented pressure on price. We will hope to dispel that myth and highlight how this approach can optimize the buying decision.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
TT1 – Distribution Revisited
Presenter: NBTA Technology Committee
Suppliers are looking for and determined to find a better, less expensive way to distribute their product and services. There are new distribution players who claim to have built a better GDS mousetrap while maintaining (if not improving) a robust platform that is significantly less expensive. The session will explore the alternatives and look at the reality of these systems replacing the traditional GDS. Expect a lively debate.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
TT2 – Measuring the Success of Your Hotel program – What’s in Your Toolbelt?
Presenter: NBTA Hotel Committee
Travel buyers have different tools and methods to measure hotel program compliance, savings, and cost avoidance. Learn from key industry leaders the various data reporting tools and metrics that can help you measure the success of your program and deliver results to your company.
Suitable for: Intermediate
MM1 – Strategic Contract Management
Presenter: NBTA Groups & Meetings Committee
Participants will walk away with an understanding of the key differences and similarities between meeting contracting and corporate travel contracting. Panelists will review best practices and company specific business cases for centralized management of contracting processes and participants will be given a framework upon which they can build their own approach to this opportunity within their organization.
Suitable for: All Attendees
MM2 – Electronic RFPs
Electronic RFPs sit on the fence between the planners perspective and the hotels perspective. This session will look at both sides of using electronic RFPs and whether we will ever see widespread adoption. Come gain a perspective on whether electronic RFPs improve the process and offer real cost savings.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
DT1 – Policy Compliance Measurements and Tools
Measuring compliance of your travel policy is a difficult metric for some travel managers and depending on your mandated/non-mandated cultural, the waters can be pretty muddy. There are tools in the marketplace that can help ease the compliance burden and create a measurable benchmark. This session will explore what is happening in the compliance arena and offer a view of available tools.
Suitable for: All Attendees
HT1 – Hot Topics will be determined closer to Convention and will focus on current industry issues.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2005 8:00 - 9:15AM
EX3 – Building Bridges by Managing Change
The ability to navigate through a continuously changing environment is a "key" to continued business success. The impact of a poorly planned change is the same: operations are disrupted, anticipated gains in productivity and profitability are not realized and unexpected resistance is encountered from co-workers, customers, suppliers and even the community. This program will cover the transitional phases of change; the three key skills to help others deal with change; the common mistakes made during change; and the development of an action plan for change.
Suitable for: All Attendees
EX4– Emotional Evolution
Negative rituals drive negative outcomes. Today’s culture of conflict and negativity thrives on negative rituals and drives destructive behavior, eroding relationships and organizations. Emotional Evolution™ is a discipline that discovers and builds upon your fundamental foundation to create positive, Stabilizing Rituals™. These rituals enhance your ability to direct the mental states that routinely and spontaneously arise through your interactions with life.
This presentation enables you to manage, direct and manifest positive emotional responses enhancing personal and professional outcomes.
Suitable for: All Attendees
GL3 – Global Outlook on Safety, Security and Terrorism
Speaker Peter Tarlow travels the world updating corporations, state and local governments and associations on the state of world as it relates to safety, security and terrorism. His matter-of-fact delivery will have you on the edge of your seat and his in-depth information is exactly what you need to know.
Suitable for: All Attendees
GL4 – Influence, Persuasion, Negotiation – Choosing the Right Strategy
Influence, negotiation, and persuasion are core skills valuable to everyone in the travel industry. Choosing the right strategy to be successful is a key component to successful relationships, customer service, and travel programs. Learn key skills that are universal worldwide in negotiation, influence, and persuasion, and learn critical cultural differences and how they affect the process of doing business. Focus in on the key areas that will stress agreements and intentions when dealing outside your homeland and establish plans based on complete knowledge.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
BS3 – NBTA’s Plaza Suite: Corporate CFO to Hotel GM (and relationships in between)
Presenter: NBTA Hotel Committee
Neil Simon wrote a comedy in 3 acts about relationships that take place in an historic New York hotel. NBTA”s version of “Plaza Suite” is also a play in 3 acts about relationships, ones that we all can relate to as it comes around to that wonderful time of year called RFP Season:
Act 1: RFP Conversation Preparation
Act 2: Win-Win Negotiations
Act 3: Hotel Program Implementation
Explore how you can positively impact and leverage relationships, understand the pressure points, and gain insight to best practice resolution.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
BS4 – Critical and Innovative Thinking
The Wharton School
Making decisions in an atmosphere of increasing time pressure, uncertainty, and conflicting advice creates challenges for any manager. Making sound leadership decisions in crisis situations is even more demanding.
Critical & Innovative Thinking focuses on how to frame complex issues appropriately the first time. It presents a roadmap for making winning decisions every time, by alerting managers to common thinking traps and by offering practical remedies.
Suitable for: All Attendees
ID3 – Raise the Bar: Delivering Excellent Service to Air Travelers and Corporations
Presenter: NBTA Aviation Committee
Join members of NBTA's Aviation Committee to hear about the latest in customer service programs from airlines, airports, TMCs, and travel managers. Come with your own examples of service excellence. Together we'll explore those and other programs and provide strategies for incorporating the benefits of these initiatives into your travel program, helping you provide real value to your travelers AND senior management.
Suitable for: Intermediate
ID4 – ROI of a Managed Travel Program - A Benchmark Study
The Institute of Business Travel Management (IBTM) is the foundation and research arm of NBTA. In early spring of 2005, IBTM commissioned a benchmark study aimed at providing an interactive benchmark tool based on rich data aggregation with metrics that senior management can use to evaluate the benefits of managed travel and drive stronger performance. This session will detail the results of this study and the development of a travel performance system for NBTA members.
Suitable for: Advanced
SP3 – The Seven Steps Procurement Methodology
The seven steps procurement methodology supports the formalized steps that one would employ in any sourcing initiative. It contains defined procedures that enable anyone (with or without procurement background) to conduct an effective sourcing activity for goods or services. This topic is a cornerstone of procurement and will provide you with an excellent view of what procurement involvement could mean to the travel area of your organization. This sourcing tool will be an extremely valuable take-a-way that could be used immediately upon your return to the office. You will benefit as this new knowledge broadens the relationship and dialog between you and the procurement personnel in your office.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
SP4 – From Left to Right – T&E Systems Implementation
One of the most visible components / manifestations of a company's T&E strategies is the T&E expense reporting system. Implementing a system in alignment with that strategy involves much planning and coordination with a wide spectrum of functions from policy, to travel booking, reimbursement, audit, financial reporting, and procurement. It requires an integration of technology with internal processes. The session will take you from each end of the spectrum for a full view of the entire process
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
TT3 – Emerging Technologies
Presenter: NBTA Technology Committee
NBTA’s Technology Committee brings an overview of four critical areas affecting the business traveler of today/tomorrow. Join committee members and invited panelists in a discussion on what the technology is now, its impact on business travel and what future developments are on the horizon. Bring your curiosity and your questions as the committee focuses on: Changing GDS technology, Hotel Bundling of Communication Technologies, GPS Applications and Aviation Connectivity.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
TT4 – The Magic Behind Online Adoption
Not all parties define and measure adoption in the same ways. This session will address the magic behind adoption and provide attendees with a clear picture of what they can do to generate the measure of adoption that really does save their company money. Attendees will gain a true definition of “adoption,” and what it takes to drive adoption rates. Learn how to measure the ROI in adoption and when it literally pays to stop trying to generate adoption.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
MM3 – SMMP 101: Building a Strategic Meeting Management Program
Presenter: NBTA Groups & Meetings Committee
Participants will walk away with a good understanding of the components of the white paper titled Framework for Success: Building a Strategic Meetings Management Program which was published by the NBTA Groups & Meeting Committee in March 2004. Panelists will share best practices and audience participants will have a forum to ask questions and understand the key activities that will put their company on the road to implementing a strategic meeting management program.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
MM4 – Leveraging Transient & Meeting Spend
The numbers of corporate buyers who are combining group and meeting volume in their requests for transient hotel rates is growing, handful of buyers have taken the concept further still by requesting a single room rate for all transient and meeting bookings. This panel will explore why hotels are reluctant to this approach and what companies can do to leverage their transient travel and meeting spend.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
DT3 – Survivor: Travel Manager Value Points
Will travel managers survive in a world of Internet buying and corporate downsizing? What are the value points a travel manager brings to a corporation’s goals and mission? We know that managed travel is essential for controlling costs and the traveler. Attend this TA Only session and take home your value points list.
Suitable for: TRAVEL MANAGERS ONLY
HT3 – Hot Topics will be determined closer to Convention and will focus on current industry issues.
TUESDAY, AUGUST 16, 2005 9:45 - 11:00AM
EX5 – “C” Level Communication Campaign
It is a little different when working with the CEO, CFO or COO. This session will explore new techniques to improve your communication style and build confidence when working with executives at the top level. We will review impact points for participants to build and enhance visibility and credibility within their organizations.
Suitable for: Mid-level managers and above who report to the CEO, CFO, COO
EX6 – Emotional Evolution
Negative rituals drive negative outcomes. Today’s culture of conflict and negativity thrives on negative rituals and drives destructive behavior, eroding relationships and organizations. Emotional Evolution™ is a discipline that discovers and builds upon your fundamental foundation to create positive, Stabilizing Rituals™. These rituals enhance your ability to direct the mental states that routinely and spontaneously arise through your interactions with life.
This presentation enables you to manage, direct and manifest positive emotional responses enhancing personal and professional outcomes.
Suitable for: All Attendees
GL5 – Legal Risk Assessment and Management in Global Travel Programs
Join attorney and industry consultant John Caldwell for a discussion on the dos and dont ' s for legal risk management in global agency programs. This matter of fact presentation will include the role of global and local contract agreements and the risk of using licensees versus owners. Learn how to protect local, regional and global achievement goals with SLAs. What you need to consider regarding data, privacy and confidentiality as well as safety and terror risks. In addition, John will discuss the ramifications of having agencies negotiate on behalf of the corporation and the rules of the road for global bankruptcies.
Suitable for: Intermediate Advanced
GL6 – Understanding Travel Management in/with EMEA and APAC
If your travel program includes Europe, the Middle East and the Asia Pacific area this seminar will be your guide to the cultural challenges and technical capabilities of these area. Learn about the maturity level status of managed travel within EMEA, APAC and get the latest update on safety & security issues.
Suitable for: Intermediate
BS5 – NBTA’s Plaza Suite: Corporate CFO to Hotel GM (and relationships in between)
Presenter: NBTA Hotel Committee
Neil Simon wrote a comedy in 3 acts about relationships that take place in an historic New York hotel. NBTA”s version of “Plaza Suite” is also a play in 3 acts about relationships, ones that we all can relate to as it comes around to that wonderful time of year called RFP Season:
Act 1: RFP Conversation Preparation
Act 2: Win-Win Negotiations
Act 3: Hotel Program Implementation
Explore how you can positively impact and leverage relationships, understand the pressure points, and gain insight to best practice resolution.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
BS6 – Next Generation TMC Platforms
The mega-TMCs have introduced new platforms for travel reservation processing. What are the common technology themes across these platforms and how is each of the products different? What are the benefits for travel buyers in working with this new TMC platform? This session will be a panel discussion with representatives from the mega TMCs.
Suitable for: All Attendees
ID5 – Raise the Bar: Delivering Excellent Service to Air Travelers and Corporations
Presenter: NBTA Aviation Committee
Join members of NBTA's Aviation Committee to hear about the latest in customer service programs from airlines, airports, TMCs, and travel managers. Come with your own examples of service excellence. Together we'll explore those and other programs and provide strategies for incorporating the benefits of these initiatives into your travel program, helping you provide real value to your travelers AND senior management
Suitable for: All Attendees
ID6 – Protecting Privileged Information - Critical Alerts for Corporate Buyers
Travel buyers are increasingly charged with managing the sensitive issues of data ownership, privacy, and security Whether reservations are booked via the GDS, on internet sites like Orbitz or on airline web sites like SwaBiz, confidential data is accessed by and shared with myriad sources. A panel of industry experts will focus on the complexities of data flow and highlight potential vulnerabilities at each step in the reservations process. As important, travel buyers will glean recommended strategies to protect their companies.
Suitable for: All Attendees
SP5 – The Seven Steps Procurement Methodology
The seven steps procurement methodology supports the formalized steps that one would employ in any sourcing initiative. It contains defined procedures that enable anyone (with or without procurement background) to conduct an effective sourcing activity for goods or services. This topic is a cornerstone of procurement and will provide you with an excellent view of what procurement involvement could mean to the travel area of your organization. This sourcing tool will be an extremely valuable take-a-way that could be used immediately upon your return to the office. You will benefit as this new knowledge broadens the relationship and dialog between you and the procurement personnel in your office.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
SP6 – The New Face of the Corporate Card Market
Several changes have taken place that will alter the competitive dynamics of the corporate card market. They include new product introductions and enhancements, e.g. the Diners/MasterCard product, influence of airlines desire to reduce merchant fee expense, the court ruling in favor of bank-issued Amex cards and the change in the selection process and global focus within corporations. The session will describe the changes, identify the impact and predict the nature of the outcomes.
Suitable for: Intermediate
TT5 – Emerging Technologies
Presenter: NBTA Technology Committee
NBTA’s Technology Committee brings an overview of four critical areas affecting the business traveler of today/tomorrow. Join committee members and invited panelists in a discussion on what the technology is now, its impact on business travel and what future developments are on the horizon. Bring your curiosity and your questions as the committee focuses on: Changing GDS technology, Hotel Bundling of Communication Technologies, GPS Applications and Aviation Connectivity.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
TT6 – The Magic Behind Online Adoption
Not all parties define and measure adoption in the same ways. This session will address the magic behind adoption and provide attendees with a clear picture of what they can do to generate the measure of adoption that really does save their company money. Attendees will gain a true definition of “adoption,” and what it takes to drive adoption rates. Learn how to measure the ROI in adoption and when it literally pays to stop trying to generate adoption.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
MM5 – SMMP 201: Taking your Strategic Meeting Management Program to the Next Level
Presenter: NBTA Groups & Meetings Committee
Participants will walk away with next level ideas and best practices for pushing their already developed Strategic Meetings Management Program to a more sophisticated level. Ideas will center on process efficiencies, savings opportunities, ROI/ROO, and sophisticated strategies that go well beyond the basics. Panelists will share business cases with highlighted success stories and audience participants have a forum to ask questions and understand the key activities that will catapult their company the next level of Strategic Meetings Management.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
MM6 – Leveraging Transient & Meeting Spend
The numbers of corporate buyers who are combining group and meeting volume in their requests for transient hotel rates is growing. A handful of buyers have taken the concept further still by requesting a single room rate for all transient and meeting bookings. This panel will explore why hotels are reluctant to this approach and what companies can do to leverage their transient travel and meeting spend.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
DT5 – CTD Forum
It’s that time of year when CTD travel managers can come together to compare and share program notes and accomplishments. This facilitated discussion will be lead by CTD travel managers.
Suitable for: TRAVEL MANAGERS ONLY
HT5 – Private Sector Public Diplomacy: Combating Rising Global Anti-American Sentiment
The rise in anti-Americanism sentiment goes beyond individual travel choices and now teeters on the edge of crises for American businesses. Business for Diplomatic Action aims to sensitize, mobilize and engage American companies and individuals to the need to become better global citizens, and to enlist the U.S. business community in specific actions and initiatives aimed at measurably improving the standing of America in the world.
This session will provide an intensive briefing on the latest available research, insights and implications of rising anti-American sentiment for US based companies as well as offer guidance on how you in how you can participate in their unique efforts going forward.
Suitable for: All Attendees
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 17, 2005 1:15 - 2:30PM
EX7 – “C” Level Communication Campaign
It is a little different when working with the CEO, CFO or COO. This session will explore new techniques to improve your communication style and build confidence when working with executives at the top level. We will review impact points for participants to build and enhance visibility and credibility within their organizations.
Suitable for: Mid-level managers and above who report to the CEO, CFO, COO
GL7 – Influence, Persuasion, Negotiation – Choosing the Right Strategy
Influence, negotiation, and persuasion are core skills valuable to everyone in the travel industry. Choosing the right strategy to be successful is a key component to successful relationships, customer service, and travel programs. Learn key skills that are universal worldwide in negotiation, influence, and persuasion, and learn critical cultural differences and how they affect the process of doing business. Focus in on the key areas that will stress agreements and intentions when dealing outside your homeland and establish plans based on complete knowledge.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
BS7 – Next Generation TMC Platforms
The mega-TMCs have introduced new platforms for travel reservation processing. What are the common technology themes across these platforms and how is each of the products different? What are the benefits for travel buyers in working with this new TMC platform? This session will be a panel discussion with representatives from the mega TMCs.
Suitable for: All Attendees
ID7 – Travel Management and Client Relationships
There is lots of talk about supplier/client relationship building. We hear the “P” word a lot – partnership. But building a strong customer bond is more than words. It is building mutual trust, ensuring correct and fair pricing and it is delivering on promises. Sit in on a session about how you can create and maintain a good client partnership and what to watch out for when the relationship stumbles or the delivery is not up to your expectations. You will hear from travel managers who have made it work and suppliers who value the long term client relationship.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
SP7 – The Do’s and Don’ts of RFPs and RFQs
Request for Information and Request for Proposals are common documents in managed travel. If created properly, responses should allow for an “apples-to-apples” comparison and therefore a clearer selection process. So what are the best “to-do’s” and the worst “don’t do’s” in RFPs and RFQs? This session will answer those question and any others you bring along with you.
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate
TT7 – Distribution Revisited
Suppliers are looking for and determined to find a better, less expensive way to distribute their product and services. There are new distribution players who claim to have built a better GDS mousetrap while maintaining (if not improving) a robust platform that is significantly less expensive. The session will explore the alternatives and look at the reality of these systems replacing the traditional GDS. Expect a lively debate.
Suitable for: Intermediate/Advanced
MM7 – Role of the Internet in Meeting Planning
How prevalent is the use of the Internet when it comes to meeting planning? Researching, comparing, booking and purchasing are all possible uses but the time equation and the reliability of the information certainly has to be considered. Come listen to industry colleagues who have put the Internet to good use in meeting planning and compare the advantages and disadvantages for yourself
Suitable for: Beginner/Intermediate