Happy New Year to All!

Thanks to all of our members and our volunteer board members for their support in 2011.  Our organization had another stellar year and it’s my pleasure and an honor to be Chapter President again this year.  You have my commitment that I will do my very best to grow our chapter and obtain our goals.   With the outstanding board that is in place for 2012, I am confident that this will happen. 

Feel free to reach out to any board member if you would like to become more involved or have any suggestions on how we can be of greater benefit to you, our very valued and appreciated member. 

Wishing everyone a very healthy, happy and prosperous 2012! 

Nathan Prior

Welcome to CNFBTA's First Newsletter!

We know that we all get so many emails each and every day and yet we always have so much information we want to share with you so we decided to create a newsletter that will be sent you on a regular basis moving forward.  Of course, time senstive information and meeting invites will continue to be sent separately.  We do hope you find the information contained in the newsletter to be valuable and helpful. 

If you have ideas on how the newsletter can be improved or have topics that you would like to be considered in future newsletters, please let us know by sending an email to admin@cnfbta.org.  As always, we welcome your feedback and input!

CNFBTA holds luncheon meetings on the 4th Thursday of almost every month.  (We typically take a break in the summer for the GBTA convention and to because so many people take family vacations) 

For the convenience of all of our members, we alternate meeting months between Orlando and Jacksonville.  Sometimes we need to change the date of our meetings due to holidays or because of speaker availability or because a selected venue is not available. 

Currently our 2012 plan is to have luncheon meetings as follows:

Orlando in January, March, May and September

Jacksonville in February, April, June and October

Any additional events and meetings added to the schedule throughout the year will be communicated to our members and contacts and will be posted on our website.

Join us at CNFBTA's next meeting:

"Orlando International Airport Update"

Thursday, January 26

Hyatt Orlando International Airport. 

Click here for more details and to register. 

Being an offical chapter of GBTA enables us to offer our members discounts to some of the GBTA offered events.  Below are 2 webinars being offered in the near future that might be of interest to you. 

JANUARY 19, 2012

Business Travel Quarterly Outlook- Q4 2011

JANUARY 26, 2012

The 2012 Business Travelers: Who Are They?

FEBRUARY 8, 2012 

Online Booking Tool: Hotel Program Management

CNFBTA members can participate in these webinars for just $49 (regular fee is $99).  If you are interested in learning more, simply click on the above links.

* Congratulations Daniel Padilla!  Daniel was the lucky winner of the free rental car week donated by Enterprise Holdings.  A drawing of all members that updated their member profile with a photo and added their birthday when they renewed their membership in 2011 was done at the January 2012 Board of Directors Meeting.   

*Event Payment Changes Planned for 2012.  CNFBTA is moving to a credit card only payment option for our meetings.  Meeting attendees will be required to pay with a credit card at the time that they make their event registration on the website.  We think this will enable us to have a more streamlined check in process at events and allow for more networking time at our events! 

* New Allied Membership Dues Changes Coming in February.  To be consistent with the other Florida BTA Chapters, CNFBTA will be changing our NEW Member Allied rate to $175 beginning Feb. 1st.  If you are a travel supplier and have been considering becoming a member, now is the time to join.  Allied renewals will remain at $125 so join and pay by January 31st to take advantage of the 2011 rate of $125.   

* Attention Active CNFBTA Members - Have you renewed your membership for 2012?  Don't let your membership lapse! If your membership is not renewed  and paid by the last day of February you will not only lose all your member benefits, you will also have to pay the new member dues rate (see above details).  Click here to log in and renew your membership today! 

*Members - Please Review and Update Your Membership Profile.  Our membership list is one of the many benefits of CNFBTA.  Please be sure that your information that is in our database is updated and current.  Add a photo and your birthdate for increased exposure and opportunities to be recognized. 

*  Member Survey Resuts- Program Ideas.  The results are in! Here is a summary of the results of the member survey for proposed Program Meeting Topics for 2012:

1. How do travel programs move from Non-Managed to Managed and what are the benefits to companies that make the switch? NUMBER 1 at 93%
2. Contagious Talk by David Rich. TWO WAY TIE at 85%
3. New technology from a managed travel-TMC perspective TWO WAY TIE at 85%
4. Hotel RFP Panel FOUR WAY TIE at 77%
5. GBTA Political Action Committee- Why should you be involved? Impact of Government on Business Travel FOUR WAY TIE at 77%
6. Serious Ethics That’ll make you Laugh- FOUR WAY TIE at 77%
7. Emotional Energy- FOUR WAY TIE at 77%
8. Fundamentals of Business Travel Management GBTA Travel Academy Course 75%

Additional write-in suggestions included how to plan to eat healthy when traveling, safety measures for solo travelers, time management, duty of care, meetings contracts and standards, best in class solutions for travel managers.

 If you, or, someone you know would be interested in pariticipating as panelists for the Hotel RFP panel, or for the New Technology from a Managed Travel Perspective, please email me at krashedi@carlson.com

CNFBTA is a membership driven organization.  It is our goal to always have a balanced mix of Direct (Travel Buyers) and Allied (Suppliers) members.  CNFBTA started the year with approximately 100 members.  If you know of anyone that would benefit from CNFBTA membership, especially Direct Members, please let us know by either completing the prospect form in the member section of our website or by sending an email to our Membership Director, Manny Escalante, membership@cnfbta.org. 

We are excited to welcome the following new members to our organization! 

Sue Brett, Virgin Atlantic Airways

Cheryl Geib, Concur

Recent GBTA News:  Business Travel Beats 2011 Expectations, Heads into 2012 with Steady Growth Outlook 

GBTA recently announced a review of 2011 business travel  - “Business travel finishes 2011 with stronger growth than expected and the industry will see steady expansion in 2012 that is greater than anticipated GDP growth, according to the latest Business Travel Quarterly Outlook – United States from the Global Business Travel Association (GBTA), sponsored by Visa. Despite the uncertainties in the global economy, the business travel environment will remain healthy.”

 To read the full article click the link below: 

http://www.gbta.org/foundation/pressreleases/Pages/rls011012.aspx