It’s all business at BW Summit

If anyone in the industry is using the “R” word these days, it refers to recovery, rather than recession. That was the unanimous view of the expert panel at the 7th annual Best Western Business Travel Summit held in Toronto yesterday (March 11). Best Western’s senior vice-president sales & marketing, Dorothy Dowling; the GBTA Canada’s president, Tanya Racz; Vision 2000 Travel Group’s COO, Brian Robertson; and Concur’s executive vice-president supplier management, Michael Koetting didn’t ignore the challenges in the business travel market, but by and large, the message from each of the Summit panellists was a positive one. In this respect, Vision 2000’s Robertson noted that, “We’re beyond recovery. Business travel is up. Things are good.” While Concur’s Koetting pointed out that business travel has been outpacing GDP in the last few quarters — and that’s clearly a good thing. As for challenges, Dowling noted that right now, content is the next “holy grail” in terms of how to build it and how to convert customers. And Racz observed that companies are now looking at the overall health and wellness of their travellers when they are buying their travel. The annual session also covered such topics as compliance, duty of care, trends in the Canadian business travel market and lots more. Look for a full report on Best Western’s 7th Annual Business Travel Summit in an upcoming issue of Canadian Travel Press.