NBTA Urges Treasury to Issue Managed Travel Guidelines for TARP Recipients
APRIL28, 2009 - The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) - the largest association of business travel professionals - today sent a letter to Secretary of Treasury Timothy Geithner urging the agency to work with the travel industry to set guidelines for managed travel of companies that received government assistance.
Kevin Maguire, CCTE, GLP, NBTA President & CEO, said in the letter:
NBTA and the greater business travel community believe restricting travel will only perpetuate the harm on our nation's economy. U.S. business travel had a positive GDP impact of $208 billion, created 3.3 million U.S. jobs, generated $82 billion in tax revenue for state, local, and federal governments, supported 1 in 42 U.S. jobs, and represented 2.4 percent of the U.S. economy.
NBTA has been at the forefront of managed travel for forty years and understands that a well managed travel program ensures companies are following guidelines that include competitive bidding, expense reporting, cost containment, and policy compliance. The travel industry believes so strongly in the benefits of effectively managed travel it has published a set of standards that are being recommended to TARP companies. We encourage the Treasury Department to work with the broader travel industry to set guidelines for managed travel.
The National Business Travel Association (NBTA) is the world's premier business travel and corporate meetings organization. NBTA and its regional affiliates - NBTA Asia Pacific, the Brazilian Business Travel Association (ABGEV), NBTA Canada, NBTA Mexico and NBTA USA - serve a network of more than 15,000 business travel professionals around the globe with industry-leading events, networking, education & professional development, research, news & information, and advocacy. NBTA members, numbering more than 4,000 in 30 nations, are corporate and government travel and meetings managers, as well as travel service providers. They collectively manage and direct more than US$200 billion of global business travel and meetings expenditures annually on behalf of more than 10 million business travelers within their organizations. For more information, visit www.nbta.org.
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