ACTE to host travel meets in September
The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) has decided to hold one of its annual international events called ‘Executive Forum’ in New Delhi and another one in Bengaluru in Sept 2014. Speaking to ; Benson Tang, Regional Director, Asia, ACTE, inf
ACTE organises all meetings and education programmes for travel industry people, so that they can learn corporate travel market practices. With offices in Africa, Asia, Canada, Europe, Middle East and the United States, ACTE is able to provide support to its members in over 100 countries worldwide. This is in addition to the professional staff residing at the international headquarters near Washington, DC. As an international association representing corporate travel industry, ACTE provides global platform for its members and industry affiliates to network and to learn from each other internationally. “We believe best practice sharing and new trend forecast are the only ways to raise our corporate industry standard to a new horizon. Hence, we organise a few hundred events around the world to make aware of global trends,” said Tang.
According to Tang, global corporate travel market will continue to expand. Currently, the corporate travel global expenditure is more than US$ 1 trillion and for Asia, the expenditure is roughly a little bit more than US$ 300 billion. As a result, 30 per cent of the total global expenditure for cor- porate travel base is in Asia. Emerging markets like China, India, Korea and Central Asia will be the focus area for corporate travel.
In Tang’s opinion, India has huge opportunities for both outbound and inbound corporate travel traffic. “As one of the BRICS countries, the India outbound market remains very strong, particularly the business travel sector, where many India conglomerates are expanding their business around the world,” he pointed out. Meanwhile, many international MNCs have moved their back-offices or data centres to India. “There are huge business parks in Bengaluru in particular with major firms like IBM, HSBC, INTEL, Goldman Sachs and Fidelity. The trend will surely continue,” he emphasised.
Tang, however, underlined the importance of change in mind-set of corporate hous-
The infrastructure needed to be upgraded. The public transportation system in most cities is not as sophisticated, highways are also not world-standard and many cities have serious traffic problems
Benson Tang Regional Director,
Asia, ACTE
es. “Many administrators or finance managers think that travel management is simply an operational expense management tools for cost-control. This kind of thinking is too limited. In fact, travel management can be a strategic HR tool for staff retention and morale boost. It can also be a tool for business generation,” Tang said.
He also emphasised on industry-friendly government policies to encourage corpo- rate travel. For example, he pointed out that, though India is extremely attractive place for MICE, there are a number of bottlenecks. “The infrastructure needed to be upgraded. The public transportation system in most cities is not as sophisticated, highways are also not world-standard and many cities have serious traffic problems,” he maintained. According to Tang, the 5 star hotel costs in India are as expensive as New York City, even a bit too expensive. Visa application, on the other hand, is an important issue. Many countries needs visa and visa form is very complex. “It might take more than two hours to fill everything in,” he said. Moreover, for many MNCs, safety and security is an issue, which need serious attention of the government to develop MICE as well as corporate travel in this country.