The Boards of the Professional Convention Management Association (PCMA) and the Association of Corporate Travel Executives (ACTE) announced plans to develop a progressive and innovative Strategic Alliance.
This Alliance will uniquely leverage the strengths of both organizations to benefit their respective memberships while expanding their global brands and enhancing services.
“The Association of Corporate Travel Executives has a 22-year reputation for innovation and serving as a catalyst for positive change in the industry. This Alliance allows both organizations to maintain their individual character and membership integrity, while giving each organization the flexibility to respond to more complex industry issues in a more powerful fashion,” said ACTE President Richard Crum.
“This Strategic Alliance offers our organizations the opportunity to increase the size of the pie because of the synergies that exist between us,” said Deborah Sexton, PCMA President and CEO.
“The more we investigated this opportunity, the more we uncovered benefits for both memberships and our industry at large. The time has never been more opportune for the innovation that I think our industry needs.”
The PCMA and ACTE Strategic Alliance will take advantage of converging disciplines, leverage resources, offer cross-pollination opportunities, create economies of scale, share best practices, help align industry standards, cast a wider educational net, find solutions of common value and address the evolving needs of our increasingly sophisticated global industry.
PCMA and ACTE are similarly positioned in terms of membership. Both organizations enjoy executive-level members within each respective subset of meetings and corporate travel.
PCMA represents top meeting professionals organizing many of the largest meetings in North America and throughout the world. ACTE represents the global business travel industry with senior travel industry executives from more than 80 countries.
Both organizations are leaders in education, offering superior and relevant content for each segment. This Strategic Alliance will expand the education exchange that has been underway for nearly a year and offer the opportunity to co-locate select events for the benefit of all members.
“There is a continuing convergence of travel professionals becoming responsible for meeting planning and meetings professionals being asked to manage travel,” said John Folks, 2009 PCMA Chairman of the Board.
“In an increasingly complex and intertwined world, I only see upside to this unique Alliance for everyone. It will absolutely add member value.”
“This Strategic Alliance will open new doors for our members and industry partners by providing them with a new platform to tap into new networks. The trend among industry associations is to collaborate with convergent partners to deliver enhanced value to their stakeholders,” said Susan Gurley, ACTE’s executive director.
“This will ultimately be the way that all professional associations will work together in the future.”
Members of both organizations will immediately gain value-added member access and pricing to each organizations’ member benefits, which will be shared, at regular member rates. Additionally, enhanced revenue and cost savings are expected through collaborative research and use of staff resources.
Strategic Partners of both organizations will receive extended market reach into new and valuable target markets. The Alliance will also result in the ability for members’ professional networks to grow exponentially.
“Both organizations’ actively engaged Board and staff members are excited about the potential for this new Strategic Alliance. It positions both organizations’ memberships to benefit. I think this is a new way of doing business that makes a lot of sense and will keep all of our members uniquely well positioned and relevant moving forward,” shared Sexton.
For more information, visit PCMA or ACTE
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