Southwest Airlines is set to add Knoxville, Tenn., to its network and plans to expand service in San Diego, the carrier announced Thursday.
The airline on March 5, 2026, will begin service at Knoxville’s McGhee Tyson Airport with twice-daily flights between Knoxville and Nashville, and daily roundtrip service between Knoxville and each Baltimore, Dallas and Orlando, Fla.
In addition, Southwest on March 5 plans to begin daily year-round service between San Diego and each Eugene and Portland in Oregon; Maui, Hawaii; Seattle; and Puerto Vallarta, Mexico. The new Terminal 1 at San Diego International Airport is scheduled to open next month, according to the carrier.
Korean Air has completed the first phase of its lounge renovation project at Seoul’s Incheon International Airport, the carrier announced Thursday.
The new Prestige Garden Lounge East and Prestige Garden Lounge West have opened on the far ends of the airport’s Terminal 2, following the airport’s recent expansion, according to Korean Air. The eastern lounge overlooks a Korean-style outdoor garden, while the western lounge overlooks a modern Western-style garden. Each offer food and beverages.
The carrier on Aug. 18 will open its redesigned Prestige East Left Lounge, which is designed for business travelers, according to a Korean Air spokesperson. It will feature open kitchens, a wellness area with massage chairs and a meeting room with a conference screen, according to the carrier. There also will be shower facilities.
Remaining renovations, scheduled to be completed in 2026, include the First Class Lounge and the Prestige East West Lounge, which is a designated area for families with children.
Upon completion, Korean Air’s total lounge space at Seoul Incheon will increase to 12,270 square meters from 5,105, with seat capacity of 1,566, up from 898, according to the carrier.
The U.S. General Services Administration for fiscal year 2026 will hold its standard allowable per diem rates for federal travelers steady at 2015 levels, the agency announced Friday.
GSA’s standard lodging rate for the 2026 fiscal year, which begins Oct. 1 and runs through Sept. 30, 2026, is $110, the same as it is in fiscal year 2025. GSA’s standard meals and incidentals allowance for the 2026 fiscal year is $68, likewise unchanged.
It’s the first time in five years that GSA has not increased the per diem year over year. GSA in a statement said the decision not to raise the per diem reflects “the federal government’s commitment to being a responsible steward of taxpayer dollars,” adding that the steady per diems “are made possible by the reduction from the historically high inflationary pressures seen during the previous administration.”
“GSA’s decision ensures cost-effective travel reimbursement while supporting the mission-critical mobility of the federal workforce,” GSA office of government-wide policy associate administrator Larry Allen said in a statement.
The rate, which applies to federal government travelers as well as those traveling on government-contracted business, applies to everywhere in the U.S. not designated as a “non-standard area,” which have per diems higher than the standard rate. GSA for fiscal year 2026 will hold the number of non-standard areas steady from 2025 at 296.
Sonder Holdings CFO Michael Hughes has resigned from his position, effective Aug. 15, the apartment-style accommodations provider announced Thursday.
Hughes, a longtime hospitality industry financial executive, joined Sonder in January. Interim Sonder CEO Janice Sears will assume CFO duties for the company on an interim basis as well, the company announced.
Sears became interim CEO in June upon the resignation of co-founder Francis Davidson. The company in a Thursday statement said it expected to appoint a permanent CEO by the end of 2025, and that it expected that person to be “actively involved” in the search for a new CFO.
Sonder since March 2024 has delayed filing financial results with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, citing “accounting errors related to the valuation and impairment of operating lease right of use assets and related items” for 2022 and 2023, and has not filed first- or second-quarter results this year. Nasdaq has warned the delays have risked Sonder’s listing, and in a Thursday SEC filing Sonder indicated it expected another such warning concerning its delayed Q1 report.
Sonder last week announced it had raised about $24.5 million through the sale of promissory notes, which Sears in a statement said would “help Sonder execute our strategic plan and position the Company for long-term growth and value creation.”
Hawaiian Airlines in November will suspend flights between Honolulu and three destinations due to “underperformance,” the carrier announced this week.
The carrier’s service between Honolulu and each Boston and Fukuoka, Japan, will end on Nov. 19. The routes have been operating four and three times weekly, respectively. The five-times-weekly flights between Honolulu and Seoul Incheon will end Nov. 21.
Affected guests will be offered to be reaccommodated on other flights or receive a refund, according to Hawaiian.
Customers still will be able to fly between Hawaii and Seoul Incheon or Fukuoka via one-stop itineraries through the carrier’s other Japan destinations, including twice-daily Honolulu-Tokyo Haneda and daily Osaka services, according to the airline. Boston customers can connect daily on Hawaiian parent Alaska Airlines’ flights via Seattle, Portland, San Francisco and San Diego. Customers also can book on the carrier’s partners and Oneworld alliance airlines, Hawaiian said.
The U.S. Department of Justice has sided with the U.S. Department of Transportation’s July 19 “tentative decision” to withdraw approval of the joint venture and antitrust immunity between Delta Air Lines and Aeromexico, according to an Aug. 8 government filing.
DOT by statute must allow DOJ to weigh in on any change to or cancellation of airline antitrust immunity, though authority to remove immunity remains with DOT. DOJ in the filing said DOT “conducted an analytically rigorous evaluation of the competitive effects of the Joint Venture consistent with its statutory authority and its public interest mandate to consider competitive market forces and the impact of actual and potential competition” in its tentative decision to withdraw immunity.
In response, Delta and Aeromexico on Aug. 12 jointly filed an objection to DOT’s decision, outlining benefits of the joint venture to travelers and the economy. In it, the carriers also requested that should the partnership be dissolved, that “in light of the progress the U.S. Government has been making in its recent trade negotiations with the [government of Mexico], … at a minimum, the Department extend the proposed termination date” from Oct. 25, 2025, to March 28, 2026, which is the end of the 2025 International Air Transport Association winter season.
“This additional time would allow the trade negotiations to potentially resolve the Open Skies issues and/or facilitate a more orderly transition for the JCA Partners,” according to the filing.
DOT has argued that Mexico has “significantly altered the playing field for airlines in ways that reduce competition and allow predominant competitors to gain an unfair advantage in the U.S.-Mexico market,” according to its July 19 filing, citing Mexico’s decision in 2022 to seize slots from carriers at Benito Juarez International Airport to allow for construction and alleviate congestion, but that has yet to materialize three years later. Mexico also required cargo operations move out of that airport to another facility outside of Mexico City.
Turkish Airlines has added New Distribution Capability-native distribution platform AirBooking as a partner to its TKConnect distribution channel, AirBooking announced.
As a partner, AirBooking is able to display Turkish Airlines’ NDC content alongside global distribution system content, and users can manage bookings and ancillaries on a single platform while avoiding Turkish Airline’s $24 surcharge on EDIFACT bookings. That surcharge began last October, when Turkish Airlines launched the TKConnect platform.
AirRetailer Travel Technology launched the AirBooking platform, which serves travel management companies, corporate booking tools and corporate clients, earlier this year. Besides Turkish Airlines, listed airline partners include British Airways, American Airlines, Singapore Airlines, Qatar Airways and United Airlines, along with Sabre and Amadeus as GDS partners.
Delta Air Lines has added international remote baggage screenings to select flights arriving in Atlanta from London Heathrow and Seoul Incheon airports, the carrier announced Wednesday.
Delta and Korean Air customers flying from Seoul Incheon to Atlanta and Delta customers flying from London Heathrow to Atlanta and onward to connecting Delta flights no longer need to collect and recheck their bags at U.S. customs due to a new program and collaboration between U.S. Customs and Border Protection and the South Korean and U.K. governments. The benefit also applies to passengers flying from South Korea who start their travel in other cities and connect via Seoul Incheon, according to Korean Air.
Delta estimates the new process could save customers up to 25 minutes.
In addition, Delta customers connecting in Atlanta from London Heathrow on select flights will be able to bypass additional Transportation Security Administration screenings and proceed to their connecting gate, saving what the carrier said was up to 45 minutes. This offering will roll out to all flights from Heathrow to Atlanta flights in the coming weeks, according to Delta. This benefit has been available since February for customers traveling from Atlanta and connecting in Heathrow.
To qualify for the bypassed screening, Delta customers must be enrolled in Global Entry or use the Mobile Passport Control app.
Germany-based car rental company Sixt reported record second-quarter revenue of nearly €1.1 billion, up 7.4 percent year over year, and credited “significant growth in the core business of short-term rentals.”
The company also cited in a Wednesday earnings report “a market environment that remains politically challenging and highly volatile in macroeconomic terms, especially in the U.S.A.”
North American second-quarter revenue was €334.6 million, an increase of 4.8 percent year over year. The Germany segment revenue increased 1.2 percent to €289.2 million. Revenue for the Europe segment excluding Germany increased the most during the second quarter to €456 million from €400.9 million a year prior.
The company’s consolidated profit for the quarter was more than €78.4 million, compared with nearly €48.3 million reported in Q2 2024.
Average fleet size for the second quarter was 197,800 vehicles, up 5.7 percent year over year, with “a high premium share of 54 percent,” Sixt CFO Franz Weinberger said in a statement.
The merger between American Express Global Business Travel and CWT “has the potential to substantially lessen competition,” the U.K.’s Competition and Markets Authority said in a report of its provisional findings of its investigation of the merger—an assessment with which Amex GBT said it “fundamentally disagrees.”
In its interim report on the $570 million acquisition of CWT by Amex GBT, the CMA said an independent inquiry group found the deal would lead to less choice and higher prices among large customers, which it defined as having at least $25 million in total transaction volume annually. “We have provisionally found that only a small number of business travel agencies are considered capable of meeting the needs of the largest companies, and this deal could reduce competition and increase costs,” the inquiry group’s chair, Martin Coleman, said in a statement.
In its own statement, Amex GBT countered that the report “erroneously focused on a narrow segment that makes up a small fraction of business travel spend” and did not take into consideration evolving competition in the market.
“The CMA has not appreciated the evidence that reflects the breadth of the business travel industry and its dynamic and competitive nature,” Amex GBT chief legal officer and global head of M&A Eric Bock said in a statement. “In recent years, numerous travel management companies have expanded their offerings while other companies have entered the industry and are rapidly growing their businesses.”
The CMA is allowing commentary on the provisional findings through Nov. 27. Bock said Amex GBT “is reviewing the interim report closely and will be responding to the CMA’s concerns.”
Amex GBT also said it continues to work with other regulators for approval, including the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division, and that it still expects the acquisition to close in the first quarter of 2025.
Avis Budget Group executives during a Friday earnings call focused on lowering its fleet size, increasing utilization and prioritizing “higher-margin business.”
“Our primary goal has always been to adjust our fleet size throughout the year, which allowed us to continue to improve utilization with this quarter finishing nearly two points above our prior year,” Avis Budget CEO Joe Ferraro said. “We are on track to start 2025 with substantially fewer cars than we started [with] in 2024.”
The average size of ABG’s third-quarter rental fleet was 735,841, down about 2.5 percent from Q3 2023. Vehicle utilization increased to 72.1 percent from 70.4 percent. For the Americas, fleet size decreased 3.7 percent to 531,261, while vehicle utilization increased to 71.5 percent from 70.3 percent. Though the average rental fleet for the international segment increased to 204,580 from 202,700, vehicle utilization also increased to 73.7 percent from 70.6 percent.
“We will continue to improve as we implement further operational enhancements and remain laser-focused on our fleet discipline,” Ferraro said. “We anticipate strong vehicle utilization in the fourth quarter that surpasses any fourth quarter in our history.”
As to what defines “higher-margin business,” executives didn’t elaborate.
“We took the measured approach to volume and focused on higher-margin business,” Ferraro said. “In doing so, we elected to forego lower-margin business. In times like this, with fleet costs or outliers through our historic norms, it makes more sense for us to pass on lower-price business, especially from brand-agnostic customers.”
Avis Budget Q3 Metrics
Avis Budget reported third-quarter revenue of $3.48 billion, down 2 percent year over year. Americas revenue was down 4 percent to $2.64 billion, while international was up 1 percent to $840 million. Net income was $238 million compared with $627 million one year prior.
Total third-quarter rental days remained relatively steady at nearly 48.8 million. Revenue per day decreased to $71.32 from $72.97. Americas rental days decreased 2 percent year over year to 34.9 million. That segment’s revenue per day decreased to $75.61 from $76.70. International rental days increased 5 percent compared with Q3 2023 to nearly 13.9 million, while that segment’s RPD declined to $60.52 from $62.86.
Delta Air Lines beginning Dec. 2 will launch nonstop service between New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport and Lagos, Nigeria, the carrier announced Thursday. The service will run through March 28, 2025, with daily flights until Feb. 28, then three times weekly through March, according to Delta.
After Air Canada’s corporate segment gained during the second quarter, momentum slowed during the third, EVP of revenue and network planning Mark Galardo said during a Friday earnings call.
Corporate demand “was improving,” Galardo said, without providing any data. “Unfortunately, we ran into a bit of a situation about some labor uncertainty that kind of slowed us down in the fall, but it’s definitely encouraging signals going forward. In particular, [there is] more strength on the U.S. network than on Canada.”
Galardo was referring to the negotiation period with the carrier’s pilots leading up to and into September. The carrier and the pilots union reached a last-minute deal, which prevented a strike, but prior to that, Air Canada had announced contingency plans to begin shutting down in the event of a strike.
“The proactive goodwill policies we put in place to mitigate our customers’ travel disruptions during the pilot contract negotiations was the right thing to do,” Galardo said. “During that time, we saw multiple weeks of softer booking volumes as some customers postponed or canceled their itineraries while others chose to fly with other carriers. This had an impact in Q3, particularly in September and continued to a lesser extent in the first half of October.”
Air Canada Q3 Metrics
Air Canada reported third-quarter revenue of C$6.1 billion (US$4.5 billion), a 3.8 percent year-over-year decrease. Passenger revenue was C$5.6 billion, down about C$260 million. Net income was C$2 billion, up from C$1.25 billion a year prior.
Capacity increased 3 percent year over year for the quarter, and the average fuel cost was C$0.982 per liter, according to Air Canada. The carrier projects a full-year 2024 capacity increase of 5 percent year over year.
The carrier this week also announced on Jan. 15, 2025, it would resume Vancouver-Beijing daily service, and on Dec. 7, 2024, would increase its Vancouver-Shanghai service to daily, up from four times weekly.
Data released at the GBTA Foundation’s WinIt Conference last
week paints a picture of how the managed travel industry is powered by female
professionals—but not often shaped by female leadership. The foundation’s
survey of 600 travel professionals found that among corporate travel buyers, women
held a strong number of director-level roles but failed to garner the most senior
travel management titles available. On the supplier side, the situation was
similar: women achieved strong positions but failed to take the leap into true leadership
roles.
On the corporate side, women represent 67 percent of travel
managers and buyers. That number jibes with BTN studies—and has
remained constant for at least 15 years. According to the GBTA survey, 68
percent of female respondents held a manager or senior manager role, compared
to 29 percent of male respondents, indicating an equitable distribution of men
and women at this level given the overall industry demographics.
Distribution of director-level positions begin to departs
from that equilibrium, with just 59 percent held by women, lagging their overall
representation in travel management roles. Further, as titles shift to vice
president or above, female representation drops drastically. Only 46 percent of
survey respondents who cited vice president-level roles or higher were female,
compared to 50 percent who were male (select respondents opted out of
identifying their gender).
Only 39 percent of vice president or executive leadership roles at travel suppliers and TMCs were held by women, though women represented 57 percent of all roles on the travel supplier side.
GBTA Foundation Study
On the supplier side, the picture was equally discouraging—and
perhaps more so. Only 39 percent of vice president or executive leadership
roles at travel suppliers and TMCs were held by women, though women represented
57 percent of all roles on the travel supplier side. A strong plurality of female
travel professionals held account management roles—at 22 percent—compared to
just 8 percent of male travel professionals in those roles. Moreover, only 2
percent of female respondents cited roles in technology; men cited such roles
more than three times as often as women.
The GBTA Foundation report suggested that lack of dedicated career
development opportunities for women were to blame for bracketing talented
female professionals out of leadership positions. Only 37 percent of travel
companies that participated in this survey had such programs, which report
authors cited as “crucial” for developing female leaders.
“There is a clear opportunity for more robust initiatives
that focus on promoting women to the executive levels and for further
investment in mentorship, development programs, and gender diversity
initiatives in leadership and technical roles,” said GBTA foundation managing
director Delphine Millot.
United Airlines next year will increase its qualification levels for 2026 elite status, the airline announced Tuesday.
The new status levels are:
PQP: premier qualifying points PQF: premier qualifying flights
Customers have between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2025, to reach premier status for 2026.
In mid-2025, Premier Platinum and 1K members also will have the ability to redeem PlusPoints for new perks such as PQP and PQF, TravelBank cash, bonus miles or gifting premier status to other MileagePlus members, according to United.
In addition, all members who achieve 2025 premier status as of Dec. 31, 2024, will receive a PQP deposit in early 2025 to get a head start on their status goals for 2026. Those bonuses are 300 PQP for Silver status, 600 PQP for Gold status, 900 PQP for Platinum status and 1,400 PQP for 1K status, according to the carrier. MileagePlus member also will earn an additional 20 PlusPoints for every 3,000 PQP earned beyond 22,000 PQP.
The pipeline of U.S. hotel development in the third quarter set another new record for planned projects, according to a new report from Lodging Econometrics, with more than 6,200 in development, up 9 percent year over year.
Those projects in aggregate include more than 722,800 guest rooms, according to the company.
Dallas in the third quarter once again led the U.S. as the city with the most hotels in the pipeline, with 194 projects and more than 22,800 rooms, according to Lodging Econometrics. The city has led all others in pipeline count since the second quarter of 2021, when New York led.
At the end of the third quarter, 1,185 hotel projects comprising more than 148,700 rooms were under construction, increases of 11 percent and 6 percent year over year, respectively. More than 2,200 projects with 322,300 rooms are set to begin construction in the next 12 months, according to Lodging Econometrics, each figure up 17 percent.
Upscale and upper midscale properties comprise about 60 percent of all projects in the total pipeline, according to the company, with midscale projects and rooms under development increasing by 19 percent and 16 percent, respectively.
Atlanta finished the third quarter second to Dallas in terms of hotel development, with 166 properties comprising nearly 19,200 rooms in the pipeline. Atlanta was followed by Nashville, Tenn., with 130 properties in the pipeline with nearly 17,000 rooms.
Travel data solution provider Travelogix is piloting an integration of OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology to enhance data analysis capabilities, the company announced.
Travelogix is working with a set of “hand-picked travel management companies” to test capabilities of the ChatGPT large language model to automate analysis of charts, graphs and data sets within its Analytix tool, the company said. The integration particularly will enhance the ability for users to add comments and observations to reporting, a function that is “being severely underutilized,” according to Travelogix chief technology officer Gary Jones.
“We wanted to allow travel managers and bookers to generate analysis quickly and autonomously, giving the user a rich and accurate jumping-off point for interpreting their travel data,” Jones said in a statement.
Travelogix said the testing phase would last 12 weeks, after which it would use feedback to adjust for a full production release.
Accor Group preliminarily projects 2025 negotiated corporate rates to increase by “mid-single digits” year over year, CFO Martine Gerow said Thursday during the company’s third-quarter earnings presentation, similar to the increase in 2024.
“It’s a bit early to tell,” Gerow said of 2025 rates. “But in terms of the guidance that we are giving our sales team is to have a rate increase in the same territory as what we did this year, which was … mid-single digits.”
Accor’s systemwide third-quarter revenue per available room increased 5.3 percent on a like-for-like, constant-currency basis, Gerow said.
Gerow didn’t delve too deeply into Accor’s business travel demand but noted “we’ve seen higher growth coming from business and groups” than leisure customers.
Accor Q3 Performance
Accor’s third-quarter systemwide RevPAR increased 5.3 percent year over year to €80. In the Americas region—encompassing North, Central and South America and the Caribbean—it increased 13.2 percent to €42.
Q3 RevPAR in Accor’s premium, midscale and economy group increased 4.7 percent to €66, while it increased 6.8 percent in its luxury and lifestyle group to €163.
Third-quarter systemwide average daily rate increased 4.1 percent year over year to €113, while it increased 8.8 percent in the Americas group to €67. It increased 3.9 percent to €93 among the premium, midscale and economy group and 2.8 percent to €241 at luxury and lifestyle properties.
Q3 systemwide occupancy increased 0.8 percentage points year over year to 70.5 percent, while it increased 2.5 percentage points to 62.6 percent in the Americas.
Accor projected full-year 2024 RevPAR to increase 4 percent to 5 percent year over year.
Total Q3 revenue increased 12 percent year over year to €1.43 billion.
Privately owned company Enterprise Mobility—which owns the Enterprise, National and Alamo car rental brands—reported record annual revenue of more than $38 billion for its 2024 fiscal year, the company announced Thursday. That figure is inclusive of its subsidiaries and affiliate Enterprise Fleet Management and surpasses the record $35 billion reported in FY23.
Enterprise Mobility’s 2024 fiscal year ended July 31.
During the fiscal year, the company grew its international footprint, with all European subsidiaries reporting revenue growth, and the U.K. business growing to more than 480 branches. In addition, the Enterprise, National and Alamo brands were introduced in Chile, Thailand and the U.S. Virgin Islands during FY24, bringing the brands’ global reach to more than 9,500 locations across more than 90 countries and territories, according to the company.
Betsy Bondurant, CMM, CTE, president of Bondurant Consulting and head of U.S. operations for 3Sixty Event Consulting, passed away on October 15.
Meetings management trailblazer Betsy Bondurant died last week
after a long battle with pancreatic cancer. The meetings industry, which she shaped
for the last 25 years through her pioneering work at biotech firm Amgen and then
through her deeply innovative and collaborative consulting business Bondurant
Consulting, is mourning her passing.
Bondurant built the model for a companywide meeting
registry, sourcing and contracting program at Amgen starting in 1999. An early
adopter of meeting technology StarCite, she used the platform to document the
savings of centralized sourcing and contracting, and reported the cost of
non-compliance to senior leadership to gain more buy-in to her program.
She continually evolved the program until she left Amgen in
2007 to launch her consulting practice. For the last 17 years, she helped
companies with SMM and event management.
Over the years Bondurant freely shared best practices,
common-sense tips and the savings potential of better meetings management. Business
Travel News has a long history as a beneficiary of Bondurant’s expertise. She
always made herself available to our editors for interviews featured in dozens
of articles through the years. She spoke often at BTN Group industry events,
providing cornerstone content and deep insights when BTN launched the Strategic
Meetings Summit in 2015.
Bondurant left an indelible mark on this industry through
her work with various committees and taskforces. BTN has compiled below just a
few of what could be dozens of tributes to her work, her professional generosity
and her friendship.
_____________________________
“The meetings industry lost a true pioneer this week. Betsy
and I crossed paths at Hyatt hotels and during her many years with Amgen and
then with her consulting business. She was one of the leading authorities on
Strategic Meetings Management and helped build numerous SMM programs that
continue to thrive today. She will be greatly missed and leaves a void in our
industry that will be incredibly tough to fill.”
David Peckinpaugh, President & CEO, Maritz
_____________________________
Betsy was perhaps the most genuinely authentic individual
that I ever met. Beginning with her beautiful smile and sparkling eyes,
she was truly a “what you see is what you get” individual who embraced every
person that she met, every opportunity she faced and every challenge that came
her way with a positive spirit and a sincerity that is so rarely found. She
possessed no self-serving agenda, and truly served to make others and our
industry better. She has left a mark that will never be erased. Our
best way to honor Betsy is to continue to elevate our industry with the
sincerity and purity of spirit that Betsy embodied.
Linda McNairy, Principal, Ground Floor Solutions
_____________________________
I first met Betsy when she was still at Amgen, and our
friendship grew over decades of traveling together, advocating for and
educating the industry about Strategic Meetings Management. Betsy had a special
talent for breaking down the fundamentals of SMM, making it easy for beginners
and those looking to launch their own meeting programs.
We often saw each other at industry conferences, and no
matter how hectic things got, we always found time to catch up over a drink or
coffee. Betsy was the kind of person people naturally gravitated
toward—kind-hearted, positive and full of warmth. She and her late husband,
Chris, were devoted Parrotheads, never missing a Jimmy Buffett concert when
they could, a reflection of their love for sailing and travel.
When I was tasked with developing an updated two-day Fundamentals
of Strategic Meetings Management course for GBTA’s SMM course
certification, I immediately reached out to Betsy, along with Debi Scholar and
Shimon Avish. Despite their busy schedules, they all accepted the challenge.
Betsy, in particular, brought her trademark dedication, always going above and
beyond. Even when my workload was heavy, she would offer to shoulder some of
it—just one example of her generosity and the true friend she was.
I will deeply miss her as a friend and confidante. Although
I am saddened by her loss, I take comfort in imagining Betsy and Chris
reunited, sailing once more and enjoying Jimmy Buffett’s heavenly concerts.
Rest in peace, my dear friend—you are missed by so many.
Kevin Iwamoto, Strategic Meetings Management Advisor
_____________________________
Over the years I have been part of some of the Strategic
Meetings Management sessions which Betsy led, and as importantly part of the
heartfelt conversations over coffee or a drink later in the day. Betsy
would be happy to spend her free time delving into the mechanics of SMM but
perhaps even more importantly supporting, encouraging and coaching the person
or people leading the charge for SMM. Her knowledge and commitment was
only exceeded by her kindness. We will miss that and her warmth most of
all.
Kimberly Meyer, Co-Founder, Data Angel
_____________________________
I first met Betsy in 2004 when she was at Amgen and I was at
PwC. One of her meeting managers was in the Meetings Competitive Advantage
Forum as was I. The MCAF founder, Maddy Caliri, joined four other industry
leaders (Kari Wendel, Tracey Wilt, Mike Malinchok and Alan Bednowitz) in a
newly formed National Business Travel Association (now Global Business Travel
Association) committee called the Groups & Meetings Committee that wrote
the first whitepaper (and several more) on Strategic Meetings Management.
Kevin Iwamoto, GBTA president and CEO at that time,
was instrumental in getting this new committee in place with Maddy and
Tracey as the first co-leaders. The Groups & Meetings Committee became
the driving force of worldwide SMM strategies and supplier services. Being part
of that prestigious group was a career highlight for many of us.
Progressive meeting leaders embraced the concept quickly;
yet, implementation posed challenges at most companies due to complexity and
buy-in. When Betsy learned the foundational aspects and the theory behind
SMM, she commenced on a journey within Amgen to deploy an improved meetings
program. She succeeded.
After leaving Amgen, she took her skillset to the market and
provided consulting services worldwide. We worked together on several projects
over the years; my favorite was a comprehensive day-long SMM course, with other
industry leaders (Kevin Iwamoto & Shimon Avish), that was delivered at a
GBTA Convention. Betsy was kind, hardworking and an industry expert. We
will miss her.
Debi Scholar, Sr. Director Global Travel & Meetings,
Teva Pharmaceuticals
