WORLD – The Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) has launched a 2012 Industry Affairs Agenda to members and key departments of the European Commission.
The Agenda promotes GBTA’s European positions on four key areas and is co-ordinated with GBTA’s positions with USA legislative bodies:
- The health of travel infrastructure
- Passenger efficiency and safety
- Transparency, fair competition, fair taxation and fees
- Reduction of governmental travel costs through smarter procurement
GBTA launched its advocacy initiative via a GBTA Europe Advocacy Group in 2010 and appointed Hans-IngoBiehl, VDR’s Executive Director as Chair of the group, and Jan Henrik Ulvatne, General Manager of the Norwegian Business Travel Association, as Vice-Chair to lead the group.
Under a new deal between GBTA and the German association VDR, Biehl will fulfil the role of lead advocatefor GBTA in Europe as part of his Executive Director role for VDR. The Agenda sets out the issues Biehl will be focusing the group’s efforts on, culminating in a planned GBTA European Legislative Summit in Brussels in the autumn.
Talking about the agenda and summit, Biehl said: “Advocacy is such an important aspect of GBTA’s work in Europe; we felt at VDR it was important to support it fully.
“I am delighted to take on the role and build on our initial efforts in 2011. The Legislative Summit plans to be the foremost point of engagement for our industry with the Commission and I hope stakeholders from across our industry engage.”
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