Responsibly Held Corporate Travel & Meetings=Travel Industry Jobs

Posted on February 18th, 2010 by Amber Holst

Speaking of efforts by the U.S. Travel Association to invigorate corporate travel, Roger Dow, President & CEO of the U.S. Travel Association kicked off the 2010 Illinois Governor’s Conference on Tourism, his emphasis on working with elected officials to help them differentiate between budget-abusing corporate travel and legitimate business expenses.

In effect, there’s a difference between a publicly funded company holding a luxurious travel junket and AT&T getting their salespeople together to both incent them and train them on new products.

Says Dow, “If you look at [the travel] industry, we’re like the drama club. We put on good shows, everybody applauds, and we should be, but we have to become the football team.”

So, he said, the U.S. Travel Association went all out to counter the perception that all corporate travel is wrong-headed; they ran an ad: ‘Want to lose one million more jobs? Just keep talking.’ And pointed out to politicians all the way up to President Barack Obama that many of the resorts and convention centers in their own regions of the country were being affected; Dow said this resulted in a more reasonable policy toward corporate travel and offered some points to back it up.

(more…)

Tags: Governor's Conference on Tourism, Roger Dow, U.S. Travel Association