A Global Business Travel Association (GBTA) survey finds that an increasing number of travel managers are charged with risk management, strategic meetings management planning (SMMP), and other responsibilities. Although their titles might be Travel Manager or, Travel Director, more and more travel department heads are taking on meeting management and other tasks, according to GBTA research.

Over half (55 %) of the travel directors polled said they are responsible for developing strategic meetings management programs at their companies in the 2012 GBTA Travel Management Compensation and Benefits Survey. The survey reported a 9 percent rise in such tasks compared to the same time in 2011.

Diversified Tasks

An increasing number of travel department heads have also taken on meeting planning, the report suggests – 43 percent in 2012, up 4 points from 2010.

Angie Henderson, the Apple Inc. Global Strategic Meetings Manager, says that [SMMP, or strategic meetings management programs] “has always been rolled up in to travel”, further she stated: “I feel we were one of the first large corporations that designed our meeting program in that fashion a long time ago. My boss, who is the global travel manager, has accountability for me and my team, who oversee all meetings.”

This view was reflected by Judy Bauer, global leader, corporate travel, at Marsh & McLennan Companies: she was charged with the creation of her company’s SMMP two years ago. The company has no centralized meeting management department; instead, alongside corporate travel-meeting responsibilities, each of its four operating companies’ marketing departments contains meeting planners. She was forced to hire consultants to help her accomplish the task and will hire a manager to oversee SMMP. She estimates that even after the manager is in place, SMM responsibilities will still be 25 percent of her role.

Sustainability and Risk

Responsibilities don’t end with meetings; the survey also revealed that more travel directors are being asked to create green travel policies (a role that saw an increase of 4 points to 36% in 2012) and nearly a quarter (26%) is in charge of overall corporate social responsibility programs.

Risk management is an additional task that has come the way of travel directors: 68 percent of respondents now claim to be responsible for the company’s overall program of risk management – an increase of 12 percentage points in just one year.

It would seem travel directors and their departments are taking on more of a diverse workload than ever. This is one reason that at Royal Coachman Worldwide, we are prouder than ever of our relationship with our local and national corporate travel departments. We are a ground transportation company in the New Jersey/New York metro area that knows that our customers always keep pace with developments in the corporate travel industry. We offer a wide variety of services with our highly trained staff and modern fleet of luxurious vehicles in our area and beyond in hundreds of global locations around the world. Call us today to see how we can make your task easier.

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