Thirteen business travel associations from countries across Europe have formed the European Network of Business Travel Associations (BT4Europe). The new non-profit association will be headquartered in Brussels. Its 13 founding members have joined forces to give business travel buyers a stronger voice in Europe.
Millions of Europeans travel on business every year, thousands of jobs have been created and are needed to service business travel. In all European countries business travel on behalf of private corporations, public service and NGOs is vital to our economies and our societies. Up to now the buyers of business travel – companies, public services, NGOs – did not have a unified network to make their demands heard on a European level.
BT4Europe will build a bridge between its member associations and political decision makers in Europe. On top of its agenda are the recovery of business travel from Covid-19 pandemic, changing business travel to make it more sustainable and promoting digital processes within business travel.
BT4Europe will provide a network for its member associations and a platform for European decision makers to take the demands of business travel buyers into account in their decisions.
Founding members of BT4Europe are ABTA (Austria), AEGVE (Spain), AITMM (Italy), AFTM (France), ASTM (Switzerland), BATM (Belgium), CORTAS (The Netherlands), DBTA (Denmark), FBTA (Finland), NATM (The Netherlands), NBTA (Norway), SBTA (Sweden) and VDR (Germany). BT4Europe remains open for membership of more associations and other supporting entities.
“A united force to represent business travel buyers is strongly needed in Europe. For too long has the industry focused on national decision makers while relevant legislation has moved to pan-European levels. BT4Europe will advance the industry and will advance Europe,” says Patrick W. Diemer, newly elected Chair of the European Network of Business Travel Associations.
“A crisis like the Covid-19 pandemic needs a strong and coherent response from all European states. We only keep our economies and societies afloat, if we impose the identical restrictions and identical rules for domestic and cross-border travel,” says Dominic Short, newly elected Board Director of BT4Europe.
“Too much paperwork makes business travel highly inefficient. We save time, money and contribute to the climate, if we deploy digital processes throughout business travel. Digital business travel needs support from legislation,” says Lotten Fowler, newly elected Board Director of BT4Europe.
