ACTE UPDATE

Greeley Koch Executive Director, ACTE

What a heck of a year 2017 was! From Brexit and unrelenting concerns about terrorism to immigration issues and electronic bans, as well as other geopolitical and industry events that quickly became old hat – the challenges just kept coming.

The amazing thing is that as an industry, everyone put their head down, forged ahead and came out on the other side.

You should be proud of yourselves. Whether on the supply side or the demand side, you are becoming even more adept at responding. Integrating change – never an easy prospect – was done with such deftness that these relatively new issues seem to have always been with us.

As for industry-specific changes likely to make 2018 interesting – from the impact of blockchain and Bitcoin to content availability and new ways of booking – let's keep an open mind. You’ll need it to make the technological innovations work for your travellers and companies.

So congratulate yourselves on what you’ve learned over the past 12 months and how prepared you are for the next challenge.

Given what you handled in 2017, have no doubt that you’re ready for anything that 2018 throws at us.