The Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) today organized a regional education forum to update about the latest know how in the corporate travel segment. The day – long event at ITC Gardenia, Bangaluru witnessed the presence of captains of the segment.
“With a consistent growth in economy, Corporate Travel has emerged as one of the fastest growing segment in India. Industry needs to adapt to the fast changing requirements of suppliers and buyers. At ACTE, our endeavour is to provide an established knowledge platform where leaders from the industry gather to discuss contemporary issues and look for a solution to prepare a roadmap for the growth of the Corporate Travel. ACTE encourages such out-of-the-box thinking to tackle such challenges while giving people opportunities to look at different ways of handling business. This Education Forum in Bengaluru offers the ultimate learning experience as well as unrivalled networking opportunities and best practice advice. Industry leaders are focusing on specific segments and what the future for those segments might be, this year and beyond,” Jyothi Varma, Regional Manager, South East Asia, ACTE said.
The conference, started with a keynote address by Madhu Shekaran, Principal Evangelist, Amazon Internet Services who spoke extensively on the ways and means of application of cloud computing for the benefit of the travel industry.
The first panel discussion on topic ‘Envisioning a Robust Travel Technology Strategy’ was moderated by Sameer Saxena from Marsh & Mclennan and the speakers were Amit Raichada of BCD Travel, Bindu Dominic of Cisco Systems (India), C Gurumurthy of Intuit Technology and Suraj Nair of Travel Spends amongst others. The panel delved deep into how technology can be used to offer the seamless experience to customers. It also pondered over overcoming the challenges posed by the rapidly changing technology.
The second panel on ‘Stay Ahead of the Hotel Sourcing Curve: New Tools Mean New Opportunities’ talked about the new e-procurement tools, India’s new GST, and address the lack of data transparency. Moderated by Suresh Makhija of ATPI, the panel talked about the changing patterns in hotel sourcing.
Moderated by industry expert C. Varghese, the third panel on ‘Payments Programmes Have Evolved, Have You Kept up with Today’s Solutions? Make Modern Payment Solutions Your Reality’ talked about evolving payment options and how corporate travel programme can be benefitted out of it. Panelists such as Balamurugan Kalia of Corporate Solutions Redefined, Major Aditi Mohan of Fidelity, Sanjay Nandi of HDFC and Pramod Shetty of Capgemini spoke their mind on the issue.
The conference was attended by over 100 delegates, Jyothi informed.
