Last month, after 11 years, ITP returned to North America for its latest partner conference. In 2002, the venue was Miami in South East US. This time we chose the North West and crossed the border into Canada.

Eleven years ago, most of the participating partners came from Europe but in Vancouver, there were partners from all over the world, including new ITP partners from countries as diverse as Kazakhstan, Argentina, Czech Republic, China, Portugal and Lebanon. This was a clear and tangible demonstration of how ITP has developed and continually improved over the last decade.

The challenge as ever is to channel the strengths of each partner and ensure that everyone works together in support of common goals and commercial objectives and the theme of the Conference ‘The Power of One’, was chosen to reflect this.
Virginia shared details of progress being made with the redesign of the ITP website and partners were split into groups to come up with ideas for the renaming of some ITP products and contribute ideas about projecting our image. Jean-Claude also presented a summary of ITP’s profit and loss statement over the last five years.

The agenda also reflected the progress that ITP has made with products and services and included a variety of suppliers including Amadeus, Etihad Airways and HRS, with whom we recently entered into an agreement on behalf of partners.
There was also a strong focus on sharing information about key Travel Industry developments. These included the controversial IATA New Distribution Capability, ‘The Future of the Travel Consultant’, ‘Account Profitability Models’, and ‘Cost per trip’, another method of gauging cost versus value by corporate travel managers.

All these presentations were prepared by ITP partners who wanted to share their knowledge and experience and their contribution was greatly appreciated. Sharing is an important part of ITP partnership and in the spirit of one of the late Lou Reed’s most famous lyrics, “You reap what you sow”. Those who make a contribution, usually experience the commercial rewards. These and other presentations are now posted in the Partners’ area of the ITP website so please take a few minutes to go through them.

The Conference programme was organised by ITP Canada, Continental Travel Group and particular thanks go to Daryl Silver, who recommended an excellent conference venue and put t o g e t h e r a s u p e r b programme of evening social events.
The City of Vancouver proved to be an excellent location with excellent weather, autumn colours and a relaxed atmosphere. This all added to the success of the event.

We look forward to our 2014 conference in Lisbon! vê-lo na próxima vez!