Calendar of Events

February Meeting

About our speaker: Norman L. Rose, President Travel Tech Consulting, Inc.

Norm is world renowned for his travel technology expertise, particularly his analysis of the impact of emerging trends such mobile, social media, blockchain and Artificial Intelligence. He has extensive experience in all travel industry sectors including airlines, tour operators, online and traditional travel agents, hoteliers, rail and software platforms used for operations and distribution. From 1982-1988 he held sales and marketing management positions at United Airlines and from 1989 -1995, Norm was corporate travel manager for Sun Microsystems. At Sun, he worked with a number of third-party developers creating client/server software for the business travel market. This included early prototypes of self-booking tools and expense management systems. 

Travel Tech Consulting, Inc. (TTCI) was founded in 1995 with a clear mission: to track emerging technologies and interpret their impact on the global travel industry; to help clients create strategies to manage a changing technology-driven reality. TTCI has a deep knowledge of technologies used for airline operations and distribution. Norm Rose, TTCI’s president, is a recognized global industry expert in travel-related technology and e-business, with a specific focus on emerging trends such as mobile, social media and Artificial Intelligence. Based in the Silicon Valley, TTCI works with a deep and experienced network of global travel industry experts who join forces to meet the needs of specific clients and projects. Over the last 23 years, TTCI has worked with a number of airlines, distribution platforms and travel intermediaries in the U.S, Europe, the Middle East and Asia helping facilitate business and technology strategies.  

Registration closes at 5pm on the Monday before the event. We are unable to take a waiting list, however we will accept payment at the door for walk-ups at the event on an availability only basis, we regret we cannot verify additional capacity ahead of time. 

Register Now

What Did I Miss?

January 2018 Meeting

Buyer Panel - Goals and Priorities for 2018

Juniper Hotel Cupertino

Great turn-out and enthusiasm kicks our year off with a buyer panel lead by Makiko Barrett, Director Global Travel at Oath/ VP SVBTA.  In addition to great updates from our board to start the meeting, a representative from The Mission City Fund our focus charity of the year thanked everyone for their kind support of a great local cause!  Joining Makiko on the panel were: Laura Hodgkinson, CTC, GLP - Sr. Global Travel Strategy Leader,  PayPal, Kelly Smith - Manager, Global Travel, Talend and Mary Greiner - Global Travel Manager, ServiceNow – what a great conversation!

Hot topics included:

Keeping communication lines open with suppliers, a top priority.

Open booking is okay for some programs

GDPR

How travel impacts stock prices

Sharing data with senior management

What new technologies are being used/ explored? Freebird, Tripbam, AI chatbox and virtual pay

Find ways to help promote preferred suppliers

Hotel savings tracking and compliance

Real time savings is reported to finance

Unused ticket management

Tracking KPI’s 

Calendar of Events
CLICK HERE for our events listing

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Professional Development

New Scholarships are Available!
Apply before February 23^rd

Attention all Members!  Scholarship Grants are available for the following:

1) GBTA Membership
2) GBTA Convention
3) SVBTA Membership Renewal
4) Educational Grant - Global Travel Professional Certification (GTP)
5) GTP Certification/Re certification Exam or study guide
6) Educational Grant towards GLP Courses and/or GBTA Fundamentals courses.

1.      2018 Scholarship Round 1
2.      Opens January 1^st
3.      Deadline – February 23^rd

To apply please CLICK HERE
Any questions please reach out to [email protected]

SVBTA Education Day 2018
SAVE THE DATE!

May 10th, 2018

SVBTA’s 2018 Education Day focuses on the association’s key initiatives to Engage, Educate and Innovate.   Our theme is Traveler Centricity and the event will location is at Hyatt Regency San Francisco Airport.

Our content is still evolving but will focus around the needs of the modern business traveler.  Starting with the booking process all the way through the expense report process – a true end-to-end walk through of the technology, lodging, air, hotel, and expense procedure.  How are suppliers keeping up?  What new technology is out there to make the traveler and the travel manager’s life easier in shaping these experiences.  Looking beyond today’s challenges and what tomorrow’s future brings.

We rely on our members and community to shape the day and expect over 30 local travel buyers and industry professionals joined by additional allied partners as well. Mark your calendar or better yet – register NOW at svbta.org

Why I chose to get GTP Certification

Makiko Barrett – Director, Global Travel

I’ve received my GTP certification in 2013. When I was looking for a new job 9 years ago, I was looking for a way to highlight my experience in more qualitative way, rather than quantitative because I had less than 5 years in the travel management role.  At that time GBTA only had the CCTE and GLP program, which required me to travel to other cities to take the classes. 

Not only it was costly and time consuming, I was not able to travel with a young child at home. When GTP was introduced, I thought it was a perfect opportunity because I could study at my own pace at home.  Reading many recommended white papers helped me validate my travel program but also gave me new ideas.  The difficult part of preparing was that you have to think in terms of “best practice” which may not be how your company may want things done.

Once you receive the GTP certification, it is easy to renew after 3 years. I listen in to GBTA webinars and attend SVBTA meetings that will give me the credit required. I believe having the GTP certification proves my commitment to continuously improving myself as a travel professional. 

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Community Outreach

2018 – “We’re WAITING to hear from you!”

Our Community Outreach team wants YOU to tell us what you think! A number of great and local charitable organizations were supported by SVBTA in 2017 thanks to the generosity of our members and friends.

We look forward to another great year of sharing and giving back to the communities where we live and work in 2018. We are interested in hearing about the organizations that you may support and why you think that we could focus efforts on those groups to assist. Our volunteers would like to organize new opportunities for more food and clothing drives, walks to raise funds and other similar events.  Contact [email protected]

In addition, you will have a chance to support the Mission City Fund at our upcoming meeting on February 8th.

We’re excited to announce this worthy organization will be our 2018 focus Charity of the Year!

Learn more here: http://www.missioncityfund.org/.

Your Community Outreach Team has also selected Child Advocates of Silicon Valley as a quarterly recipient. Looking forward to another great year! Thank you to all of you for making 2017 a banner year in giving to our community!

Please let us know who you think we should be supporting in our community, we look forward to hearing from you. [email protected]

Michele Wilson, Community Outreach Director

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Annual Golf Classic

SAVE THE DATE

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Government Affairs

Greetings from the Government Relations Committee

The 12th annual GBTA Government Relations Challenge is ON! We are focused on becoming the #1 Chapter in the Country in raising funds for the GBTA PAC, which supports Representatives on both sides of the aisle that champion issues critical to our Industry. Look for opportunities to donate to the GBTA Business PAC at our monthly meetings!

Interested in an exciting volunteering opportunity? Our committee will represent SVBTA at a Legislative Summit in Washington DC, June 4 through June 6. We welcome your participation and involvement! Please contact Michael Anderson: [email protected] to learn more.

Michael Anderson
Director – SVBTA Government Relations

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Sponsor Opportunities

2018 Sponsorship Opportunities are now OPEN!

The Sponsorship Committee welcomes sponsorship inquires for our 2018 monthly meetings & events!

Contact [email protected] for more information.

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Welcome New Members

Meet Our Latest new Members HERE

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Social Media

Please join us on the following social media sites

NEW for 2018

Instagram GBTA – Silicon Valley Chapter

Twitter @svbta
Facebook www.facebook.com/svbta
LinkedIn Groups Silicon Valley Business Travel Association

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