ACTE-CAPA Global Conference Sydney

• CAPA – Centre For Aviation, Executive Chairman, Peter Harbison
• Qantas, Head of Business and Government Sales, John Simeone

Jamie Pherous represents energy, drive and vision in the way he formed, launched and remained strongly committed to building a major global Australian business. His visionary story is attractive to both the industry for those young people who are looking for leadership guidelines, for the buyers in understanding the personal side of the CTM story and for the whole of the industry in understanding what Jamie sees as a visionary in this industry. Why when all are saying technology is the future, people will become redundant, B2C will be the way of the future: what does Jamie believe or see is the future of corporate travel business?

• Corporate Travel Management (CTM), Managing Director, Jamie Pherous
  Interviewed by Satu Raunola-Spencer, Founder, Satu Raunola Consulting

Travel technology guru, Johnny Thorsen will lead the way with updates on the latest innovations in technology that have ALREADY ARRIVED and are helping shape travel programs right now.

• Mezi, Vice President, Travel Strategy & Partnerships, Johnny Thorsen

• How to best calculate and present savings to stakeholders?
• Are LCCs changing the game?

Moderator: CAPA – Centre for Aviation, Executive Chairman, Peter Harbison

Panel:

• Areka Consulting, Partner, Mike Mannix
• Sabre Travel Network, Global Accounts Director APAC, Adam Tulich
• Virgin Australia, Head of Global Corporate Sales, Richard George

A panel of experts on the ‘here and now’ of travel payments. Demystifying new regulations and technology is crucial for buyers and TMCs, so we can all walk away with actionable insights.

• The big picture of virtual cards: Who’s on board?
• End-to-end Solutions – they DO exist!
• Blockchain Smart Contracts

Moderator: MW Travel Consultancy, Principal, Martin Warner

Panel:

• Citibank, Head of Sales, Commercial Payments - Diners Club International, Vasa Srbinoski
• Conferma, Director of Sales, APAC, Darren Blair

The Blue Swan Daily caught up with Qantas Airways Head of Business & Government Sales John Simeone on the sidelines of the 2017 ACTE-CAPA Global Conference Sydney to talk all things innovation, partnerships and relationships with customers and travel management companies.

Virgin Australia, Group Executive, Rob Sharp

think, Chief Executive Officer, Peter McGregor

A few weeks ago we gave you a taste of what makes CTM founder and managing director Jamie Pherous tick when we caught up with him at the CTM offices in Sydney. Now, coming off his enlightening discussion at the 2017 ACTE-CAPA Global Conference Sydney, The Blue Swan Daily sat down with Mr Pherous to find out more.

Virgin Australia’s new group executive Rob Sharp wants you to know ‘the future is here’ and Virgin is leading the way. With the launch of a new app imminent and the airline already taking advantage of chatbot technology and artificial intelligence Virgin Australia is in proving innovation is here.

• How to gain compliance and traction from traveller?
• Hotel rates: Non-LRA/LRA/Dynamic – are the dynamics changing?
• Supply Versus Demand, what is the new norm for 2018 and onwards
• New Solutions for creating value in contracting, or are we still reinventing the same wheel?

Moderator: Anjuna, Director Aviation, Craig Smith

Panel:

• AccorHotels Australia, Director of National Sales, Elizabeth Georgopoulos
• Salesforce, Manager APJ Travel, Veronica Bergel
• The Lido Group in partnership with HRS, Chief Executive Officer, Steve Mackenzie
• TravelClick, Regional Vice President Australia, Simon Williams

US start up, Boom, is planning a new generation carbon composite supersonic aircraft with 45 all-business seats in two single seat rows, and priced at about 10% above current business fares. It will fly at over 2,500 km an hour, or Mach 2.2, and be able to link Australia’s east coast with the US west coast in 6 hours 45 minutes.

Since the Concorde stopped operations 14 years ago, there has been no supersonic passenger travel. And today’s jet aircraft actually usually fly even more slowly than they did 50 years ago (to save on fuel).

According to Boom’s website, “The goal of the company is to pick up where Concorde left off and build a new generation supersonic aircraft. Long flights are a barrier to travel. We’re removing that barrier, turning 8-hour red eyes into 3-4-hour daytime flights. Excruciating 16-hour journeys become easy overnights. When you can get there in half the time, where will you go?”

Boom Technology Founder & CEO Blake Scholl believes Boom is only 18 months away from flying their first prototype aircraft. The Blue Swan Daily recently caught up with Mr Scholl, to learn more about this impressive technology.

The rules for mid-and large market procurement are being re-written. Are you up-to-speed? Procurement is a significant stakeholder for sales and account managers within corporate travel. But let’s face it, procurement can be challenging to work with. Price and savings dominate discussion, there’s a rigid adherence to process and every time a new category manager arrives – you’re back to square one. It doesn’t have to be that way.

If your focus is winning more accounts and improving client retention, then this session is for you. Shining light on the hopes, drivers and aspirations of procurement managers will empower sales and account managers at suppliers with the practical tools to operationalise concepts and lift the conversation from tactics to strategy. The objective – greater top line results!

Workshop Presenter:

• Synthesis Group, Founder and Director, William Pegg

Earlier in the year, The Blue Swan Daily introduced you to the artificial intelligence (AI) personal travel assistant, known as Mezi. At the time Mezi had announced its entry into the corporate travel market by offering a travel-as-a-service solution for Travel Management Companies (TMCs), Corporates and Travel Agents.

Simply put, Mezi is an AI-powered chatbot capable of automating more than 60 percent of the conversations initiated by travellers and then gathering availability, curating recommendations, and making reservations at the request of the traveller with limited human intervention. In fact, in most cases users aren’t aware of when they are chatting to the robot or agent.

In these few short years the technology has already been used by more than 100,000 travellers and impressively processed over 50 million words across 500,000 conversations. The introduction of this technology into the corporate travel world is making an impact with major TMCs already signed up to offering the product to its clients.

We recently caught up with Mezi Vice President, Travel Strategy & Partnerships Johnny Thorsen on the sidelines of the 2017 ACTE-CAPA Global Conference Sydney.