Ready.Safe.Travel: CTM’s recap of GBTA Convention 2021

Business travel is firmly on the road to recovery – if the GBTA Convention 2021 is an indication of success, our industry can decisively say we’re getting back to business and travel.

After navigating months of pandemic-related planning, the event—the world’s largest business travel expo annually—attracted over 3,500 travel professionals from more than 20 countries, and featured 170+ travel industry and expert speakers, 50 education sessions, and 200+ exhibitors. The state of the industry, the future of work, sustainability, diversity, equality and inclusion, and wellness were the featured topics of the convention.

“I was pleasantly surprised at the high level of engagement and collaboration between buyers and suppliers,” Paul Prator, CTM Director of Business Development told us. “It’s clear that the industry has made the transition from the ‘CTRL+ALT+DEL’ stage to a new, bold and better approach to business travel.”

Back together again

Overwhelmingly, attendees told us that they were excited to be back in person – for many of GBTA’s attendees, this event was the first time they had been together since 2019. For many of the Corporate Travel Management (CTM) team, the GBTA Convention 2021 was not only their first large event in a while, but also the first time CTM employees got to chance to meet some new faces (including those from CTM’s acquisition of Travel and Transport in 2020).

“The best part about attending GBTA Convention 2021 was learning from travel industry experts and connecting face-to-face on new opportunities to help push our industry forward,” said Mark Schnabel, CTM Director of Business Development.

Proprietary technology is in

While at the convention, CTM announced the rollout of an enhanced (and proprietary) global technology suite, including a new global approval tool, CTM Approve, which will be available to CTM customers in early 2022.

What makes this enhanced global technology suite unique?

Because of CTM’s proprietary tech stack and global development hubs, the global technology suite works “out of the box” for global companies with travelers booking or flying from anywhere in the world. Owning the end-to-end process of the entire technology suite also means that CTM isn’t reliant on third parties to deliver ongoing feature upgrades, enhancements, and fixes.

CTM Approve shows a holistic view of the approval workflow process from booking to final verdict (approved/denied) with relevant statistical information for each category.

In conjunction with the announcement, Mike Kubasik, CTM’s Global Chief Technology Officer, sat down in the GBTA Broadcast Studio to discuss how global data powers each element of the technology suite to ensure a truly comprehensive experience for travel managers.

“Our client feedback says people are most concerned with safety, security, and wellness of the traveler,” Mike said in his interview. “With that in mind, we spent a lot of time building out a suite of products that help the travel manager manage a multi-layered approval process.”

“Through a proprietary system, we’re able to — near real-time or in minutes — grab reservations from all of our global locations, whether wholly-owned or through partners,” Mike said.


Mike Kubasik talks CTM Approve and CTM’s new global tech suite at the GBTA Broadcast Studio
Credit: GBTA YouTube

Personalization creates a “consumer-like” experience for travelers

Mary Ellen Hess, CTM’s EVP of Business Development, sat down in the Broadcast Studio on the GBTA Convention floor to talk through CTM’s award-winning online booking tool, Lightning, as well as her work and accomplishment with WINiT, and CTM’s strong representation of women in leadership roles.

CTM’s personalization strategy was also a hot topic. “At CTM, we’re all about personalization,” said Mary Ellen during her interview. “We’ve been making a tremendous amount of investment this last year in creating and serving up content that’s relevant to the traveler – highly personalized with their profile information, recent and past trips, and their travel searches.”

“Personalization helps companies prevent leakage,” she continued. “Travelers are looking for a consumer-like experience and CTM is making things as easy as possible for our clients with our personalization efforts.”


Mary Ellen Hess sat down at the GBTA Broadcast Studio on CTM’s personalization efforts
Credit: GBTA YouTube

Managing travel fluently and successfully

Jami Hedrick, CTM’s SVP & General Manager for the Plains Region, spoke to GBTA Convention attendees as part of GBTA’s education session programming on “A Beginner’s Guide to Managing Travel Fluently and Successfully.” Jami’s education session covered the basics of running a successful corporate travel program by understanding the skills that every travel manager must possess.

One tip Jami shared during her session? Know your audience. “Right now, we have four generations of travelers in our companies – baby boomers, Gen X, millennials, and Gen Z,” Jami said. “All of these employees are looking for something unique in your travel program – now especially coming out of the pandemic when we are in an ’employee’s market.'”

“Travel is a big piece of that,” Jami continued. “Especially if you going to ask a new or existing employee to travel. They want to know what the benefits are for them and what they get out of the travel. Some prospective employees are even asking for a copy of the company’s travel policy before they will commit.”

Jami’s education session was a big hit amongst attendees. The session had a large turnout and received positive feedback.

Jami Hedrick spoke to GBTA session attendees on tips to run a successful corporate travel program
Credit: GBTA YouTube

In-person speaking sessions – in bite-size form

For the first time, CTM hosted our own speaker series in our booth on the expo floor. The mini speaker series featured bite-sized talks from CTM’s own in-house experts on a variety of industry topics:

• Mary Ellen Hess, CTM’s EVP of Business Development, discussed driving positive organizational change through a return to travel strategy – outlining how travel managers can “be the hero” and bring their travel programs back safer, greener, and stronger
• Jesse Maddox, CTM’s Director of Third Party Marketplace, walked through the cost of travel vs. the toll of the travelers in an engaging discussion on what we can do about traveler wellbeing
• Eric Ediger, CTM’s Executive Director of Product Development, took attendees through CTM’s breakthrough technologies and how artificial intelligence and machine learning connect business to the future of travel
• Brian Duffy, Director of Business Development with CTM’s meetings and events management division, Event Travel Management (ETM), discussed how the meetings and events sphere is changing, and the importance of a sound meetings and events strategy

Speaker: Brian Duffy
Photo Credit: Emily Campion, CTM

Business travel is on the road to recovery

The CTM team had a hugely successful event, and we were thrilled to connect (and re-connect!) with so many of our industry peers. You can’t beat the human connection that in-person events provide – reminding us all why travel will always be important.

“The GBTA Convention proves once again the ability to deliver an unmatched level of connectivity and engagement with travel industry buyers and suppliers, over just a few highly productive days,” Mary Ellen Hess told us.

We’re already looking forward to GBTA Convention 2022 in August.  Hope to see you in San Diego!

Looking forward to seeing you at GBTA Convention 2022!
Photo credit: Alexa Perry