announcement

Business Travel Executive magazine has commissioned a monthly article from the Business Travel Coalition entitled Insights. Beginning in February, articles will appear on the third Thursday of each month at askBTE.com, and later in the print edition of this leading magazine. An abstract and link to the first article is at the bottom of this email.

Several aspects of this new initiative are novel and very exciting:

FREE ACCESS
Each 1,000 word article will be immediately available as free content for linking, republication or reproduction in any format, e.g., electronic or print. Travel and purchasing Associations, travel management companies (TMCs) and consortia around the world can use the articles as content for their Websites or Newsletters; travel managers can publish useful pieces to their company Intranets; and media and other travel industry Websites can publish whichever pieces they so choose. No advance permissions are necessary; all that is required is attribution. To use these articles, please include the following: "Republished with permission from Business Travel Executive / askBTE.com and Business Travel Coalition."

TIMELINESS
Each article will be edited and published to askBTE.com within one day of my submission to BTE Editor Judy Ferring assuring timely analysis of industry and government developments, and breaking news. An industry alert, with an abstract and hot link, will be distributed via email when articles are published.

CONTENT
The BTC pieces will generally focus on the most strategic issues facing corporate travel buyers, travel management companies and the business travel industry as a whole. The perspective will largely be global. Aviation security, travel distribution system reform, air traffic management modernization and financing, airline industry consolidation, travel manager performance measurements and scenario planning as a management tool are among topics we will be looking into.

FORMATS
Article formats will be varied, e.g., straight up analyses, commentary, Q&A, a Spoof from time to time. Some pieces will even be designed for individual business travelers. For example, we are planning an article explaining why travelers sometimes see less expensive travel product prices on the Internet than through their company travel programs and what it means and doesn’t mean. This could be useful to travel managers to use on their Intranets as sometimes a message from an outsider is received differently.

INAUGURAL ARTICLE

January 31, 2007
http://www.askbte.com/article.asp?articleid=5131&preview=1

Distribution Déjà Vu (Abstract)

UK airline distribution is set for a rules-change by the end of February, similar in nature to what took place in the U.S. in 2006. The stakes are at least as big, but is there the will to survive?Airlines seek latitude to put exclusive content on their own web sites and a wholesale shift of third-party distribution costs to travel management companies (TMCs) and then onto corporate customers. TMCs seek guaranteed full content in the GDS, with no fees, and guaranteed parity with airline web site fares offerings. BTC’s experience, gained on the U.S. battlefield last year, is that no one is likely going to walk away from this current round of industry upheaval with a complete win -– but one thing is clear, the airlines will get much more of what they seek if distributors slumber.