ITMC 2023 was awesome
Having attended the GBTA 2023 conference in Dallas the week previous with 5,200 of our closest travel professional friends, the ITMC conference was a much more engaging and personalised few days in Ft Lauderdale.
Don't get me wrong the GBTA conference was very informative and if you planned your agenda well you could meet people however a "let's try to catch-up" strategy does not work there. I attended a number of really interesting sessions including:
SAF - discussing how the sustainable aviation fuel initiative is positive however as it only represents >0.5% of todays aviation fuel with massive cost-to-market hurdles for a truely scalable solution we cannot just rely on this to decarbonise the industry.
The ongoing discussion around NDC - well the time has come to stop complaining and get our head out of the sand. Embrace the new technology and make bold decisions to partner with tech providers who understand the benefits.
Another very thought provoking session was around travel procurement in the future. As we know cost has a place and now more attention is being placed on sustainability, goal focused outcomes, wellness, work-from-home-employee needs, risk mitigation and yes, content access.
At the ITMC conference we had a room full of travel professionals from independent travel management businesses and suppliers who recognise this as a massive market opportunity. The TMC's came from India, South Africa, Europe, UK, US and South America. Such a broad and diverse experience and knowledge base to learn from.
The suppliers included hotel, car hire, ground transportation and a tremendous group of technology providers all offering micro-services to enable a true travel-as-a-service environment. I can't mention all of these amazing partners here, however here are a few;
Spotnana, Grapevine, Grasp, HQ, Jyney, SnowfallThrust Carbon, Travelogix and Tripstax - if you'd like to know if any of these could help your travel business or even work directly with a corporate client check their websites of ask me for more information.
A big shout out to The Advantage Global Network and Hickory Global Partners for putting on the event.
Planning has started on the 2024 conference and I highly recommend anyone in the independent travel management market including suppliers to attend. You won't be disappointed.
