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New travel industry lobbying force planned
Travel management firm Rosenbluth International is spearheading an initiative to establish a top-level travel industry body that is capable of influencing government.
The company’s UK director Mark O’Brien said that he envisaged the body would consist of some of the industry’s top names and include representatives from ABTA, the Guild of Business Travel Agents and the Institute of Travel Management, as well as corporate firms with travel budgets worth millions of pounds.
Rosenbluth is one of the few travel management firms not to be a member of the Guild of Business Travel Agents (GBTA), which held its annual conference in Toronto this weekend. While Mr O’Brien stopped short of criticising the GBTA, he added: “The government doubled air tax two years ago – if we had an effective lobbying body would they have been able to do that?”
Mr O’Brien also pointed out that it was now five months into the Guild’s Year of the Business Traveller campaign, adding: “What’s happened?”
According to Rosenbluth, the UK travel industry needs an executive body that is capable of influencing government in the same way that top ranking travel firms can lobby and exert pressure in the US.
Mr O’Brien said he hoped that a “framework” for the creation of the new body would be in place by the end of this year, with it up and running by the middle of 2003. He said: “Time is of the essence. We need someone to take the lead and effectively lobby government. If it doesn’t happen this industry will be walked over.”
For more on Rosenbluth, see this week’s TravelMole Interview.
See previous stories:
14 May 2002: Rosenbluth seeks to reduce its own travel spend
22 Mar 2002: Zero commission hits agents in US
06 Feb 2002: Rosenbluth and BTI address post September 11 security fears
16 Oct 2001: Rosenbluth implements 10% pay cuts
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