Mandy Scotney

TravelManagers’ has already confirmed their location and dates for their 2011 conference. Scheduled for Friday 11 and Saturday 12 November at the Crown Promenade Hotel (Crown Conference Centre) in Melbourne, it is expected to be their largest conference to date. Executive General Manager Mandy Scotney says Melbourne was deliberately selected over a couple of overseas locations.

“Melbourne is a stunning city, it does conferencing brilliantly plus it’s well located, making it an easy destination for all our personal travel managers to get to. With so many attending we wanted to make our fourth conference accessible, it’s an added bonus to be able to support our domestic tourism.”

Ms Scotney says the date and venue have been released earlier than usual as a result of how popular the event is.

“For the past three years 99 percent of our personal travel managers who attended the conference said that the conference added value to their business and the same percentage agreed that they would recommend future conferences to their colleagues. People’s calendars book up so we are releasing the date as early as we can to ensure all can attend.”

Ms Scotney says their annual conference is an amazing opportunity for the team to come together.

“It’s very much a two-way conference. It’s about sharing ideas, learning from each other, building or further strengthening relationships across the business, plus expanding networks with suppliers. The conference serves as a vital part of how we move to the next stage in the evolution of TravelManagers.”

She says the personal travel manager model is now no longer just a concept being trialed.

“Being a personal travel manager is a career, TravelManagers’ success, especially over the economic downturn, proves it’s now not only a robust business model but an unrivalled market leader that is perfectly positioned as an integral part of the travel industry’s future.”

Whilst the content is yet to be confirmed Ms Scotney says it’s always a priority to ensure everyone leaves the event inspired and full of useful and practical ideas.

“There are certain sessions that receive very positive feedback each year, consequently we will include them again this year. Examples include our ‘personal travel manager stories’ which is where individual personal travel managers talk about past experiences that are both good and challenging, what they did and the results. Similarly our small group workshops are also extremely popular where people can elect what areas interest them from a wide range of subjects.”

Ms Scotney says one of the most popular sessions is our suppliers’ ‘Supplier Networking & Product Updates’.

“This is a fantastic networking opportunity for the personal travel managers and the feedback from both suppliers and our team is so positive.”

TravelManagers also uses the annual conference as an opportunity to recognise and reward those that have achieved outstanding results.