NBTA Foundation Upgrades Benchmarking Tool
Additions include CSR Assessment and Peer Comparisons for Car, Hotel
The NBTA Foundation, the education and research foundation of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA), this week unveiled upgrades to its unique Managed Travel Index® (MTI) & Benchmarking Tool that will add car rental rate benchmarking and enhance hotel benchmarking, as well as provide the ability to assess the maturity of travel-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives.
Los Angeles -- The NBTA Foundation, the education and research foundation of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA), this week unveiled upgrades to its unique Managed Travel Index® (MTI) & Benchmarking Tool that will add car rental rate benchmarking and enhance hotel benchmarking, as well as provide the ability to assess the maturity of travel-related corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives. The enhancements were launched during a session at the 40th Annual NBTA International Convention & Exposition being held this week in Los Angeles.
Users of the MTI & Benchmarking Tool can now benchmark their average hotel rates in top markets against the rates of other users, in addition to the previously available capability to compare to average room rates in top markets. Users will also be able to compare their average daily car rental rates to those of other users.
Fay Beauchine, NBTA Foundation Board of Trustees Chair, said, "The ability to benchmark hotel and car rental rates against those of other companies will help MTI & Benchmarking Tool subscribers drive maximum travel value for their companies. We are proud to continually improve this unique tool to give users that extra edge as they work to advance their travel management programs."
The new version of the MTI & Benchmarking Tool marks the latest of several upgrades made since the resource was first launched in 2005.
The new CSR component of the tool helps travel managers measure the maturity of their companies' travel CSR initiatives. The user completes a self-assessment, answering 15 CSR questions measuring how their programs are structured to manage travel demand, procure sustainable travel services, offset travel-related emissions and incorporate duty of care initiatives. Based on the responses the tool assigns each program a CSR maturity level from zero (Non-existent) to 5 (Integrated). Users will then be linked to the recently-published 2008 NBTA CSR Toolkit for detailed information on advancing their CSR initiatives.
With the launch of these new upgrades, complimentary subscriptions to the MTI & Benchmarking Tool are being made available to all NBTA members for 90 days. To access the tool, and for more information, see http://www.benchmarking.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, 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.
The NBTA Foundation is the education and research foundation of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA). The foundation was established in 1997 to support NBTA's members and the industry as a whole. As the leading education and research foundation in the business travel industry, the NBTA Foundation seeks to fund initiatives to advance the business travel profession. The foundation offers the only master's-level accredited course and professional designation for the corporate travel professional, the Global Leadership Professional (GLP) program, in partnership with The Wharton School. The industry's leading benchmarking resource – the Managed Travel Index® (MTI) & Benchmarking Tool – is offered by the foundation. The NBTA Foundation is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. For more information, see www.nbtafoundation.org.
Widely recognized as the must-attend event for business travel buyers, suppliers, industry leaders and business travel journalists, the 2008 NBTA International Convention & Exposition will be held in Los Angeles from July 27-30. More than 6,000 travel professionals are expected to take advantage of the convention's programming, designed to empower attendees to maximize value for their companies, including more than 40 seminars on the most important topics in business travel, more than 460 companies exhibiting in the Expo and countless opportunities for networking with peers. For details, visit www.nbtaconvention.org.